NG  PHYSICIAN 


[CIS  BRETT  YOUNG 


THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 


I 

BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE    CRESCENT  MOON 
THE  IRON  AGE 
THE  DARK  TOWEH 
DEEP  SEA 

UNDERGROWTH 

(with  E.  Brett  Young) 

MARCHING  ON  TANGA 
POEMS    1916-1918. 


E.  P.  DTJTTON  &  COMPANY 

NEW   YORK 


THE 
YOUNG    PHYSICIAN 


BY 

FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG 

AUTHOR   OF  "MABCHING   ON   TANGA,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Copyright,  1920, 
By  E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


First  printing March,  19SO 

Second  printing March,  1920 

Third  printing.  .  .September,  1920 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


To 

THOMAS  BRETT  YOUNG,  M.D. 

WITH  THE  LOVE  AND   ADMIRATION 
OF  HIS   SON 


2139016 


CONTENTS 

BOOK  I 

•CHAPTEB  PAQB 

i.    MURDERER'S  CROSS        1 

II.      GOLDEN  MEDIOCRITY 16 

m.      THE  GREEN  TREES 27 

IV.      MIDSUMMER 42 

V.      AIRS  AND  GRACES 57 

VI.      THUNDER  WEATHER 69 

VII.      IMPURITY 86 

VIII.      HOMEWARDS 107 

EX.      THE  DARK  HOUSE             ...               .       .  124 


X.      THRENODY 153 

XI.      THE   THRESHOLD 184 

XII.      THE   HILLS  211 


BOOK  II 

I.  THE  CITY  OF  IRON 249 

II.  MORTALITY  BEHOLD 272 

III.  CARNIVAL .  ,v    .  296 

IV.  SCIENCE -   .  324 

•• 

vu 


via  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

V.      ROMANCE          . 346 

VI.      THE  DRESSER 372 

VII.      THE  CLERK 403 

Vin.      LOWER  SPARKDALE 435 

IX.      EASY  ROW 460 

X.  WHITE  ROSES        .  487 


BOOK  I 


The  green  trees,  when  I  saw  them 
first  through  one  of  the  gates,  trans- 
ported and  ravished  me;  their  sweet- 
ness and  unusual  beauty  made  my 
heart  to  leap  and  almost  mad  with 
ecstasy, — they  were  such  strange 
and  wonderful  things.  The  skies 
were  mine,  and  so  were  the  sun  and 
moon  and  stars, — and  all  the  world 
was  mine, — and  I  the  only  spectator 
and  enjoyer  of  it. 

THOMAS  TRAHEBNB. 


THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 


CHAPTER  I 

MURDERER'S  CROSS 


ABOVE  and  beyond  the  zone  of  villas,  some  still 
white  with  newly-mixed  mortar  and  the  latest 
unadorned  by  more  than  twelve-foot  tendrils  of 
ampelopsis  or  rambling  roses,  the  downs  bent  their 
bow  to  the  sky.  The  horizon  loomed  so  smooth 
and  vast  that  the  plantations  of  pine  and  beech 
which  fringed  the  summits  were  powerless  to  break 
the  nobility  and  purpose  of  its  contour,  etched  gray- 
black  against  the  hem  of  a  thunder-cloud  that  was 
of  the  colour  of  ink.  Between  the  banks  a  chalk 
road  climbed:  an  aspiring  road,  felted  in  the 
trodden  parts  with  dust  but  cross-veined  with  flinty 
gutters  through  which  rain  poured,  like  London 
milk,  in  stormy  weather.  A  smell  of  hot  earth  was 
in  the  air.  The  turf  at  the  wayside  was  parched 
and  slippery,  so  that  Edwin  Ingleby,  plodding  up 
the  slope,  was  forced  to  keep  to  the  white  roadway 
by  the  slipperiness  of  his  boot-leather.  A  rather 
pitiful  figure  he  made,  this  small  boy  in  an  Eton 
jacket,  his  waistcoat  now  unbuttoned  and  his 
school  cap  crumpled  in  his  hot  hands.  He  walked 
and  ran  straight  upward,  as  though  the  devil  were 


2  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

at  his  heels;  sometimes  looking  behind  him  to  see 
if  there  were  any  one  in  pursuit,  sometimes  wiping 
the  sweat  from  his  forehead  with  the  crumpled  cap. 

A  wagonette,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  horses  and 
burdened  with  trippers,  jolted  past  him,  throwing 
up  a  cloud  of  chalk-dust  that  made  his  eyes  smart. 
Inside  it  swayed  seven  fat  women  in  black  bodices. 
The  guard,  who  was  sufficiently  sober,  in  his  own 
opinion,  to  ride  on  the  step,  was  seen  to  laugh  at 
the  dust-smothered  boy  in  the  road. 

"Poor  lamb,"  said  the  most  motherly  of  the  seven. 
"Wouldn't  'e  like  a  lift?" 

"Gowing  the  hopposite  way,  mem,"  said  the 
guard.  "One  of  them  College  lads." 

"  'Ot  'e  looks !"  said  the  lady.  "Going  to  rine 
kets  and  dorgs,  too." 

Edwin  Ingleby  rubbed  the  dust  out  of,  or  into, 
his  eyes  and  went  plugging  on  to  the  top  of  the 
ridge  where  the  road  dipped  through  a  belt  of 
beeches  into  the  trough  between  two  billows  of 
down,  losing  itself  within  high  banks  of  turf  which 
bordered  the  plough-land,  satiny  now  with  bearded 
wheat  and  infinitely  restful.  He  sat  down  on  the 
bank  with  his  feet  in  the  gutter  and  began  to  mop 
up  tears  with  the  cap  that  he  had  lately  used  for 
mopping  up  sweat.  All  the  time  that  he  was  crying, 
his  heart  was  really  full  of  almost  incontinent 
valour,  and  that  was  why  his  tears  made  him  angry. 
He  began  talking  to  himself : — 

"Damned  beast  .  .  .  great  beefy  beast.  ...  If 
only  the  men  could  see  what  a  damned  beast  he  is. 
If  Lay  ton  or  some  one  could  give  him  what  he 
wants.  Only  no  one  could  fight  him.  .  .  .  He's  got 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  3 

a  weak  heart,  and  it  might  kill  him.  I  suppose  that 
would  be  murder.  ..." 

The  word  suddenly  got  a  new  significance.  They 
called  this  road  Murderer's  Cross  Road.  High  up 
in  the  grassy  bank  some  pious  person  had  cut  a  St. 
Andrew's  cross  to  commemorate  the  murder  of  a 
postman  who  had  been  relieved  of  his  bags  and 
his  life  on  a  dark  night  a  century  ago.  The  col- 
lege tradition  said  that  it  was  haunted.  Certainly 
it  had  an  ugly  sound.  Murderer's  Cross  Road:  a 
name  to  be  whispered. 

"Funny  .  .  ."  said  Edwin.  "There's  nothing 
very  awful  about  it.  I  could  understand  a  chap 
wanting  to  murder  a  chap.  Quite  easily.  Only  he 
might  be  sorry  about  it  afterwards.  I  wouldn't 
mind  murdering  Griffin." 

He  took  a  silver  watch  out  of  his  pocket  and 
laid  it  on  the  bank  beside  him.  He  could  see  that 
there  was  a  full  hour  to  spare  before  the  bell  in 
the  water  tower  would  jangle  for  the  evening  roll- 
call  in  the  corner  of  the  Quad ;  and  so  he  lay  back 
easily  on  the  bank,  stretching  out  his  legs  and 
arms  in  the  form  of  the  St.  Andrew's  cross  scored 
in  the  hedge  a  little  farther  on.  Lying  thus  he 
could  watch  the  shimmer  on  the  bearded  wheat. 
He  had  always  loved  the  softness  of  this  dip  in 
the  downs.  He  had  loved  it  on  winter  mornings 
delicately  dusted  with  rime,  in  November  when 
flints  lay  like  a  bloom  on  the  pale  fallow,  in  March 
when  the  bloom  turned  green.  Now  the  thunder- 
clouds had  rolled  away,  rumbling,  from  the  south, 
and  a  breath  of  cooler  air  was  moving  through  the 
valley,  throwing  the  surface  of  that  green  sea  into 


4  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

wave-like  motion ;  the  waves  shuddered  faintly  and 
the  sound  came  to  his  ears  as  though  re-echoed  from 
the  heavy  woods  which  stood  still  in  the  heat, 
bounding  the  green  ripples;  and  lying  there,  with 
his  eyes  half-closed,  Edwin  was  already  afloat, 
bearing  westward  with  the  set  of  the  tide  in  the 
track  of  Cortes  and  Columbus  and  Pizarro  and 
other  adventurous  voyagers.  It  was  not  really  very 
difficult  for  him  to  forget  his  tears.  Although  the 
fear  of  Griffin,  that  had  first  driven  him  afield,  was 
a  cruel  obsession  to  which  he  was  liable  by  night 
ajid  day,  he  had  long  ago  discovered  that  silence 
and  solitude  could  make  him  free  of  any  wonder 
which  he  chose  to  imagine.  It  had  been  like  that 
even  when  he  was  quite  little;  he  had  always 
possessed  the  faculty  of  day-dreaming;  and  now 
that  his  imagination  was  beginning  to  flush  at  the 
sound  of  great  names,  and  the  pomps  of  chivalry 
and  legend  were  slowly  unfolding  before  him  with 
their  subtle  suggestiveness  unhampered  by  such 
knowledge  of  detail  as  would  be  alive  to  incongrui- 
ties, his  idleness  became  daily  more  precious.  He 
suddenly  remembered  that  Achaean  assembly 
stirred  by  Agamemnon's  words  "as  when  the  West 
wind  eometh  to  stir  a  deep  cornfield  with  violent 
blast,  and  the  ears  bow  down.  .  .  ."  And  now  the 
wind-moved  wheat  bent  like  a  stricken  army  before 
knightly  lances,  and  the  roll  of  retreating  thunder 
awoke  echoes  of  the  guns  of  Waterloo.  ...  * 

n 

It  was  nearly  three  years  since  Edwin  had  first 
seen  Griffin,  oddly  enough  on  the  very  first  day  of 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  5 

his  life  at  St.  Luke's.  Mrs.  Ingleby  had  come  down 
from  the  Midlands  with  him,  a  little  anxious,  for 
there  were  pitfalls  in  public  school  life  (it  was 
in  ninety-five),  but  immensely  proud  of  Edwin's 
entrance  scholarship.  They  had  crossed  London 
together  in  a  hansom,  and  on  the  smoky  platform  at 
Victoria,  she  had  bidden  him  a  good-bye  which  cost 
her  some  pangs,  for  the  poor  boy  was  half  dead 
with  train-sickness.  Edwin  was  her  only  child, 
and  some  smouldering  ethic  decreed  that  he  must 
not  be  pampered,  but  when  she  raised  her  veil  to 
kiss  him,  tears  escaped  beneath  its  rim.  Those  tears 
were  very  unsettling;  they  gave  him  a  sudden 
glimpse  of  his  mother  in  a  new  light;  but  he  felt 
too  ill  even  to  watch  her  hurrying  to  the  end  of 
the  platform.  His  head  ached  so  violently  in  the 
sulphurous  station  air  that  he  wouldn't  have  minded 
much  if  some  one,  say  his  next-door  neighbour  in 
the  train,  a  city  clerk  who  smoked  the  most  manly 
tobacco,  had  relieved  him  of  the  half-sovereign,  the 
last  gift  of  all,  that  he  clutched  mechanically  in 
his  left-hand  trouser  pocket — or  if  the  porters,  in 
the  fine  free  way  they  have,  had  smashed  all  the 
jampots  in  the  playbox  so  obstrusively  white  and 
new,  with 

E.  INGLEBY 
115 

in  black  lettering  on  the  lid. 

The  rest  of  that  journey  he  had  been  too  prostrate 
and  lethargic  to  realise.  Somewhere  the  shouting 
of  a  familiar  word  had  bundled  him  out  of  his 


6  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

corner;  a  porter  whom  he  had  tipped  fumblingly 
had  bundled  him  into  a  cab  which  smelt  of  straw, 
and  at  last  the  martial-looking  personage  who  re- 
ceived him  at  the  grand  entrance  had  conveyed 
him  up  a  broad  flight  of  stone  stairs  and  along  a 
corridor  that  echoed  their  two  pairs  of  foot-steps, 
to  the  housemaster's  room,  where,  in  an  atmosphere 
of  mellow  honeydew,  Mr.  Selby  sat  at  his  desk, 
trifling  with  a  bath-list  of  the  big  dormitory. 
Ingleby  sat  at  one  end  of  a  luxurious  sofa,  feeling 
very  sick.  It  seemed  as  though  he  could  never 
escape  from  the  smell  of  tobacco.  At  the  other  end 
of  the  sofa  sat  another  boy,  perhaps  three  years 
older  than  Edwin.  He  was  tall  for  his  age  and 
inclined  to  be  fat.  His  feet  were  small  and  shapely, 
and  their  smallness  accentuated  the  heavy  build 
of  his  shoulders,  so  that  the  whole  boy  seemed  to 
taper  downwards  on  the  lines  of  a  peg-top.  He 
had  a  broad  face,  covered  with  freckles,  regular  but 
undistinguished  features,  and  eyes,  rather  wide 
apart,  of  a  peculiar  cold  and  light  blue.  His  hair 
was  crisp  and  sandy;  his  whole  get-up  a  little 
dandiacal  within  the  limits  of  black  and  gray.  He 
kept  on  fingering  silver  coins,  that  jingled  together 
faintly  in  the  depths  of  his  pocket ;  perhaps  he  was 
counting  them  in  the  dark ;  perhaps  he  was  merely 
fidgeting. 

Mr.  Selby  looked  up  from  his  bath-list. 

"Well,  Griffin,  and  what  is  your  pleasure?" 

"Letter  from  father,  sir." 

A  letter  from  father  would  need  an  answer.  Mr. 
Selby,  although  an  expert  in  the  tortuous  psy- 
chology of  parents,  was  a  lazy  man.  He  sighed  as 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  7 

he  opened  it.  "H'm  .  .  .  No  games?  You  don't  look 
particularly  ill,  Griffin." 

"Doctor  said  I  was  growing  too  fast,  sir  ... 
something  about  my  heart."  Griffin's  manners  were 
irreproachable. 

Mr.  Selby  smiled. 

"Very  well,  Griffin,  very  well.  I  will  speak  to 
the  head-master  about  you.  And  who  is  this 
miserable  weed?" 

There  had  been  no  break  in  the  drawl  of  Mr. 
Selby's  voice  with  this  change  of  subject,  and  Edwin 
did  not  hear,  or  heard  without  understanding. 
Griffin  shook  him  by  the  shoulder.  He  lurched  for- 
ward like  a  creature  coming  out  of  a  cellar  into 
day  light. 

"Ingleby,  sir,"  he  said. 

"Ingleby  .  .  .  Oh,  yes.  Let  me  see.  You  won't 
need  to  take  the  placing  exam,  to-morrow  because 
of  your  scholarship  papers.  You'll  be  in  the  lower 
fourth.  So  Griffin  will  look  after  you.  Do  you 
hear,  Griffin?  I  think  Ingleby  will  be  in  your 
form.  You  are  not  overwhelmingly  likely  to  get  a 
move,  are  you?" 

Griffin  murmured  "No,  sir." 

"Then  you  can  conduct  this  Ingleby  to  D  dormi- 
tory, Griffin." 

Griffin  whispered  "Come  on,"  and  walked  ahead 
down  the  length  of  the  corridor  and  another  flight 
of  stairs  to  a  room  of  immense  length,  with  white- 
washed walls,  along  which  were  ranged  as  many 
as  thirty  red-blanketed  beds.  Down  the  centre  of 
the  dormitory  a  trastled  table  of  well-scoured  wood 


8  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

held  a  double  row  of  wash-hand  basins  and  soap- 
dishes. 

"There  you  are,"  said  Griffin,  in  a  very  off-hand 
way.  "You'd  better  bag  a  bed." 

"Which  one  is  mine,  please?"  Edwin  asked.  His 
head  was  aching  so  furiously  that  he  could  have 
lain  down  on  the  floor. 

"I've  told  you,  you've  got  to  bag  one.  Don't  you 
hear?  You'd  better  go  and  ask  that  man  over  there. 
Try  the  next  one  to  his." 

That  man  over  there  was  a  stumpy  boy  with  the 
face  of  a  hyena  and  a  shock  of  black  hair,  who 
scowled  at  Ingleby's  approach. 

"Here,  get  away.  You  can't  come  here.  I  don't 
want  any  new  kids  near  me.  Keep  him  to  yourself, 
Griffin." 

Ingleby  was  thrown  violently  into  Griffin's  arms, 
and  then  buffeted  backwards  and  forwards  like  a 
shuttlecock  between  them.  This  game  proved  to 
be  such  excellent  fun  that  wherever  he  sought  a 
bed  on  which  to  lay  his  things  it  was  continued  by 
his  immediate  neighbours.  He  was.  greenly  pale 
and  beginning  to  cry  when  a  tall,  dark  boy,  wear- 
ing glasses,  arrived  and  made  straight  for  the  group 
that  surrounded  him. 

"Here's  Layton,"  whispered  some  one. 

"What's  this?"  he  asked.  "A  new  boy?— What's 
your  name?" 

"Ingleby." 

"What's  the  matter?" 

"They  won't  let  me  find  a  bed." 

"Come  along  down  this  end,  then."  He  moved 
majestically  to  the  end  of  the  dormitory  nearest 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  9- 

to  the  door  and  pointed  to  a  vacant  bedstead.. 
"There  you  are,"  he  said.  He  was  kindly  without 
the  least  trace  of  unbending.  Ingleby  took  him  for 
a  prefect ;  already  he  had  received  the  canonisation, 
of  heroism.  He  stood  and  watched  Edwin  spread 
out  his  nightshirt  on  the  bed.  At  this  moment  the 
climax  of  his  migraine  arrived.  Edwin  was  sick. 

Layton's  lips  curled.  "Dirty  little  skunk,"  he- 
said  as  he  hurried  away. 

A  slipper,  cleverly  aimed  from  the  other  end  of 
the  room,  caught  Ingleby  full  on  his  burning  cheek.. 
The  pain  seemed  to  blind  him. 

And  a  skunk,  in  spite  of  himself,  he  remained, 
for  small  boys  are  as  persistently  unintelligent  as> 
parrots  in  their  memory  for  names.  Ingleby's. 
"skunkhood"  became  a  tradition  that  he  never 
wholly  lived  down  during  his  first  years  at  St. 
Luke's.  In  them  he  experienced  all  the  inevitable- 
qualms  of  homesickness,  although  even  these  were 
more  tolerable  than  the  physical  qualms  which  had 
complicated  his  arrival,  for  they  passed  quickly 
in  the  excitement  of  a  new  life,  the  adoption  of 
new  standards,  the  spring  of  new  ambitions.  It 
was  a  thousand  times  unfortunate  that  he  should 
have  made  such  a  sensational  debut,  that  chance 
should  have  included  such  circumstances  as  Griffin 
and  a  sick-headache  in  his  first  day;  for  all  that 
was  instinct  in  the  boy  rebelled  against  the 
category  in  which  he  found  himself  placed,  the 
definition  of  his  status  that  had  been  hastily  formu- 
lated by  a  few  small  boys,  and  almost  tacitly  ac- 
cepted by  the  masters. 

To  begin  with,  he  had  very  few  of  the  attributes 


io  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

of  the  skunk.  He  was  neither  dirty  nor  under- 
sized :  indeed  he  had  a  nice  instinct  for  personal 
cleanliness,  and  all  the  slim,  balanced  beauty  of 
a  young  boy's  figure.  He  was  far  from  unintelli- 
gent— though  this  counts  for  little  enough  in  the 
schedules  of  precedence  at  school.  It  amounted  to 
this :  he  was  not  used  to  the  company  of  other  boys ; 
he  had  never  played  games;  he  had  made  himself 
objectionable  on  his  first  night  in  the  dormitory 
— and  Layton  had  called  him  a  skunk.  Griffin  saw 
to  the  rest,  seconded  by  the  lad  with  the  hyena  face, 
who  bore  the  illustrious  name  of  Douglas.  Strange- 
ly enough  no  one  but  Ingleby  seemed  to  have  tapped 
the  romance  in  the  hyena-faced's  name.  Setting 
out  to  find  any  tokens  of  Chevy  Chase  beneath  the 
black  mop,  he  was  caught  staring  in  Hall,  and  as 
a  proper  retribution  for  such  insolence,  subjected 
to  the  pain  and  indignity  of  a  "tight  six"  with  a 
gym  shoe,  his  head  wedged  in  two  stocks  of  Mr. 
Griffin's  thighs.  New  boys  of  his  own  age,  and 
smaller,  seeing  this  exhibition,  formed  a  very  low 
estimate  of  Ingleby.  They  shuddered  also  at  the 
knowledge  that  he  had  been  heard  to  ask  the  dif- 
ference between  a  drop-kick  and  a  punt. 

This  isolation,  except  for  purposes  of  chastise- 
ment, weighed  heavily  on  Edwin.  He  didn't  wish 
to  be  different  from  others,  although  he  felt  that 
his  mind  was  somehow  of  a  painfully  foreign  text- 
ure. He  knew  that  things  somehow  struck  him 
differently  ...  but  he  was  so  far  from  taking  this 
as  a  mark  of  superiority  that  he  was  heartily 
ashamed  of  it.  His  whole  ambition  was  towards 
the  normal ;  he  tried  vigorously  to  suppress  imagi- 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  u 

nation,  humour,  all  the  inconvenient  things  with 
which  he  had  been  cursed ;  to  starve  them,  to  destroy 
them.  He  became  studious  of  the  ways  of  normal- 
ity. Griffin  and  the  noble  Douglas  were  handy 
exemplars;  Layton,  the  head  of  the  house,  an  un- 
attainable ideal.  Layton,  indeed,  was  something  of 
a  variant ;  but  Layton,  by  means  of  his  slim  skull's 
capacity  for  retaining  facts  and  an  ingratiating 
piety,  had  passed  beyond  the  pale  of  everyday  en- 
deavour. Edwin  longed  to  be  normal,  and  they 
wouldn't  let  him.  He  cultivated  assiduously  the 
use  of  the  fashionable  slang;  and  that,  of  course, 
was  easy.  He  whipped  up  an  interest  in  outdoor 
games;  played  his  very  hardest  in  the  ordinary 
house  football,  and  even  volunteered  to  take  part 
in  the  Soccer  games  organised  on  fag-days  for  small 
boys  by  Mr.  Selby,  who  nursed  a  lazy  grudge 
against  the  Rugby  Code.  "The  Miserable  Weeds," 
they  were  called,  enshrining  his  favourite  epithet. 
But  though  he  plunged  out  of  school  every  morning 
to  practise  place-kicking  in  the  fields  before  din- 
ner, Ingleby  was  not  destined  to  shine  in  sport. 
His  habit  of  dropping  off  to  sleep  between  fitful 
bursts  of  brilliance  almost  caused  him  to  be  up- 
rooted from  Mr.  Selby's  plantation  of  weeds.  This 
didn't  worry  him  much,  because  Soccer  was  not 
popular;  but  after  two  trials  in  the  house  third, 
which  the  baleful  Douglas  captained,  he  was  de- 
graded to  the  scratch  side  known  as  Small  Boys; 
and  even  here  the  scrum  extinguished  a  talent  that 
might  have  shone  in  the  three-quarter  line. 

And  since  he  failed  in  every  endeavour  to  attain 
normality,  whether  by  devotion  to  games  or  by 


12  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

those  attempts  which  he  made  to  prove  that  he 
was  neither  "coxy"  nor  "pi,"  by  a  retiring  manner 
and  a  foul  tongue,  he  began  to  crawl  back  into  his 
shell,  nursing  a  passionate  hatred,  not  unmixed 
with  envy,  for  all  those  people  whom  he  couldn't 
hope  to  be  like.  And  so,  in  a  little  time,  this  danger- 
ous humiliation  turned  to  a  sort  of  pride.  It  pleased 
him  to  count  himself  their  superior  even  when  he 
was  most  downtrodden.  His  form  master  had  re- 
cently been  boring  the  class  with  a  little  disserta- 
tion on  Marcus  Aurelius.  Edwin  became  a  Stoic, 
spending  his  days  in  far  corners  of  the  box-room, 
munching  a  slowly  dwindling  store  of  biscuits. 
Once  Griffin  caught  him  with  his  locker  door  open 
and  pinioned  him  against  the  benches  while 
Douglas  made  free  with  his  Petits-Beurres  to  the 
rest  of  the  box-room.  For  such  contingencies  as 
this  the  Emperor's  system  of  philosophy  seemed 
hardly  adequate. 

Most  of  all  he  dreaded  the  dormitory;  for  here 
the  abandonment  of  clothes  laid  him  open  to  partic- 
ularly painful  forms  of  oppression;  the  shock  and 
horror  of  bedclothes  ragged  just  as  he  was  falling 
off  to  sleep;  the  numbing  swing  of  a  pillow,  the 
lancinating  flick  of  wet  towels;  Oh! — a  hell  of  a 
life,  only  to  be  terminated  by  the  arrival  of  Layton, 
who  had  the  privilege  of  sitting  up  till  eleven,  with 
black  rings  round  his  spectacled  eyes.  He  was  read- 
ing for  a  scholarship  at  Cambridge.  Then  Ingleby 
would  really  get  off  to  sleep,  or  sometimes,  if  he 
were  too  excited,  watch  the  moonlight,  broken  by 
the  stone  mullions  of  the  windows,  whiten  the  long 
washing-table  and  cast  blue  shadows  so  intense  that 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  13 

they  heightened  the  bareness  of  the  dormitory;  or 
else  he  would  listen  to  the  harsh  breathing  of 
Douglas,  who  slept  with  his  mouth  open,  and  won- 
der what  all  those  heavy  sleepers  were  dreaming 
of,  or  if  they  dreamed  at  all.  And  then  his  own 
magic  casements  were  opened. 

At  St.  Luke's  he  had  discovered  the  trick — quite 
a  new  thing  for  him — of  historical  dreaming.  His 
form  were  busy  with  the  age  of  the  Stuarts,  under 
the  direction  of  a  master  named  Leeming,  a  mild- 
eyed  cleric,  rather  shy  of  boys  and  feverishly  grate- 
ful whenever  he  sprung  a  response  to  his  own  en- 
thusiasms. 

Ingleby  drank  deep  of  the  period's  romance,  and 
this  heady  wine  coloured  his  dreams.  He  would 
dream  sometimes  of  the  tenanted  oak  of  Boscobel, 
watching  with  agony  the  movements  of  the  Round- 
head searchers;  sometimes  he  would  stand  elbow- 
ing in  the  crowd  about  that  scaffold  at  Whitehall, 
when  the  martyr  king  stepped  out.  The  man  at 
his  left  hand  had  been  eating  garlic.  Ha! — a 
Frenchman.  One  of  those  musketeers!  .  .  .  He 
would  tremble  with  delight.  He  wished  that  he 
could  tell  Mr.  Leeming  of  his  dreams,  but  they  were 
far  too  precious  to  risk  being  bruised  by  laughter 
or  unconcern.  All  night  long  this  queer  panoramic 
rubbish  would  go  seething  through  his  brain,  until, 
at  six-fifteen,  one  of  the  waiters  swung  a  harsh  bell 
outside  the  dormitory  door  and  he  would  turn  over, 
trying  to  piece  together  the  thin  stuff  that  ita 
clangour  had  so  suddenly  broken,  until  the  ten-foil 
rang,  and  the  rush  for  early  school  began.  He 


14  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

greV  to  love  the  winter  terms  because  the  darkness 
lasted  longer. 

But  he  did  write  to  his  mother  about  it.  Always 
on  Sunday  mornings  the  sergeant  would  come  in 
with  a  letter  from  her,  full  of  the  strangely  remote 
news  of  home;  how  the  garden  was  looking,  what 
Aunt  Laura  was  doing,  and  how  they  talked  of 
felling  the  elm-trees  in  the  lane.  Sometimes,  with 
the  lavishness  of  an  angel,  she  would  put  a  couple 
of  penny  stamps  inside  for  his  reply.  The  odd 
stamp  would  buy  a  stick  of  chocolate  or  a  packet 
of  nougat  at  the  tuck  shop.  And  in  these  letters 
she  rose,  quite  unexpectedly,  to  the  recitation  of 
his  dreams.  "How  lovely  it  must  be  for  you,"  she 
wrote.  "When  you  come  home  for  the  holidays  at 
Christmas  we  will  read  some  of  Scott's  novels  aloud 
— Waverley  and  Nigel,  and  that  will  give  you  some- 
thing more  to  dream  about."  He  began  to  realise 
what  he  hadn't  seen  before:  that  his  mother  was 
really  a  wonderful  playfellow — much  better,  when 
he  came  to  think  of  it,  than  any  of  the  boys.  He 
would  have  so  much  to  explain  to  her.  .  .  .  "Oh, 
you  dear,  you  are  lovely !"  he  wrote  in  reply. 

And  then  one  day,  that  sneak  Douglas,  fooling 
about  in  the  dormitory  with  Edwin's  toothbrush, 
happened  to  see  the  words  that  were  faintly  printed 
on  the  ivory  handle: — 

INGLBBY,  CHEMIST,  HALESBY. 

"Oho,"  he  said. 

At  breakfast,  after  a  propitiatory  but  futile  help- 
ing of  jam  from  Edwin's  pot,  he  broke  the  glad 
news  to  Griffin. 


MURDERER'S  CROSS  15 

"Ingleby's  father's  a  chemist,  Griff." 

"Then  that's  why  he's  such  a  skunk,  Duggy.  Is 
it  true,  Ingleby?" 

"Yes.    He's  a  chemist." 

"Then  he  isn't  a  gentleman." 

"Of  course  he's  a  gentleman." 

"Not  if  he's  in  trade.  They  oughtn't  to  have  sent 
you  to  school  here.  It's  a  bally  shame." 

That  same  afternoon  Edwin  was  poring  over  a 
letter  at  his  desk  in  Big  School.  His  mother  al- 
ways told  him  to  keep  her  letters.  "Some  day  you 
may  like  to  look  at  them,"  she  said.  He  was  read- 
ing this  letter  for  the  tenth  time  to  see  if  he  could 
extract  some  last  scrapings  of  the  atmosphere  of 
home  which  it  had  brought  him. 

"Who's  that  letter  from?  .  .  .  Girl?"  said  Griffin 
rudely. 

"A  lady." 

"What!" 

"My  mother." 

"Christ!  Your  mother  isn't  a  lady,  or  she 
wouldn't  have  married  a  chemist  ...  or  be  your 
mother." 

And  then  Edwin  jumped  up,  overturning  the 
form  on  which  he  had  been  sitting,  and  lashed  out 
at  Griffin's  face.  He  wanted  to  smash  the  freckled 
thing.  He  only  caught  the  boy's  cheek  with  the  flat 
of  his  hand,  and  then,  after  a  second  of  dazed  won- 
der at  his  own  achievement,  he  rushed  out  of  Big 
School,  across  the  Quad,  and  up  that  white,  dust- 
felted  road  to  the  downs. 


CHAPTER  II 

GOLJ)EN  MEDIOCRITY 


OF  course  he  got  his  thrashing  in  return ;  but,  in 
the  end,  he  found  himself  the  gainer  by  that 
unthinkable  outburst.  The  incident  had  been  noted, 
and  there  were  those  who  relished  the  blow  to 
Griffin's  prestige,  a  blow  which  no  recriminatory 
lickings  could  efface.  Edwin  assured  himself  that 
he  had  that  day  lighted  such  a  candle  in  England 
as  should  never  be  put  out.  It  seemed,  indeed,  as 
though  the  affair  had  revealed  to  some  of  his  own 
classmates  that  intellectual  superiority  which  they 
had  overlooked  before ;  and,  in  particular,  it  made 
the  basis  of  a  friendship  between  himself  and  one 
of  his  rivals,  a  boy  named  Widdup,  who  combined 
with  a  head  for  mathematics — Edwin's  blank 
despair — a  certain  proficiency  in  games.  Widdup 
disliked  Griffin. 

"Great  beefy  beast,"  he  said.  "If  they'd  make 
him  play  footer  and  sweat  some  of  the  fat  off  him 
he'd  have  been  a  bit  quicker  on  you.  He  wasn't 
half  waxy  about  it.  He  hates  being  laughed 
at.  .  .  » 

And  so,  as  the  terms  slipped  by,  St.  Luke's  ceased 
to  be  a  purgatory.  Edwin  contracted  certain  timid 

16 


GOLDEN  MEDIOCRITY  17 

friendships — as  this  with  Widdup — and  adored  a 
series  of  perfectly  ordinary  prefects.  He  shook 
down  into  his  proper  place  in  the  scheme  of  things, 
and  after  that  nobody  took  much  notice  of  him. 
Even  the  Griffin-Douglas  coalition,  who  never  for- 
gave, troubled  him  very  little.  Certain  outbursts 
of  persecution  he  took  as  a  matter  of  course;  such 
was  the  teaching  of  history ;  but  the  ways  of  these 
two  were  now  widely  divergent  from  those  in  which 
he  trod.  The  dormitory  was  the  only  place  in 
which  they  inevitably  met,  for  he  had  managed  to 
move  his  seat  in  Hall  some  way  from  that  of  Griffin ; 
and  in  chapel,  the  only  other  place  they  had  in 
common,  he  was  safe. 

The  friendship  with  Widdup  notably  ripened. 
They  were  both  members  of  the  same  branch  of  the 
Natural  History  Society,  the  one  that  was  labelled 
astronomical.  The  subject  was  unpopular,  for  its 
pursuit  was  nocturnal  and  made  no  exciting  appeal 
to  the  hunting  instinct  of  boys.  The  section  met 
every  fortnight  in  the  room  of  one  of  the  mathe- 
matical masters.  And  since  they  met  at  night,  they 
managed  to  escape  second  Prep.  Their  president, 
Mr.  Heal,  was  a  rather  melancholy  performer  on 
the  flute,  and  Edwin,  generally  contriving  to  turn 
up  some  minutes  before  the  meeting  began,  would 
stand  at  the  door  listening  to  the  innocent  gentle- 
man playing  to  himself  unaccompanied  folk-tunes 
that  he  had  collected  in  the  holidays.  At  the  first 
sound  of  a  door-knock  Heal  would  unscrew  his  flute 
and  pack  it  into  a  case  lined  with  puce-coloured 
plush ;  but  it  seemed  as  though  an  afterglow  of 
tenderness  still  lingered  on  his  unusually  dull  fea- 


'i8  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ii 
tures.     As  for  astronomy,  they  never  got  much 

farther  than  the  mere  names  of  constellations  and 
their  figures,  although  Widdup  often  asked  ques- 
tions which  almost  tapped  the  mathematical  mas- 
iter's  subject.  These  adventures  were  discouraged, 
for  Mr.  Heal  had  grown  to  hate  mathematics.  But 
they  did  learn  to  find  their  way  about  the  paths 
of  the  sky,  and  often,  on  frosty  winter  evenings, 
when  the  clear  vault  above  the  downs  was  like  jet, 
Edwin  and  Widdup  would  walk  up  and  down  the 
Quad  and  imagine  that  they  could  feel  the  heave 
of  the  spinning  world,  while  they  watched  Capella 
scale  the  dome  of  sky.  And  once,  when  he  had 
come  to  the  master's  room  a  little  early  on  the  night 
of  the  section  meeting,  Mr.  Heal  cleared  his  throat 
and,  taking  Edwin  by  the  ear,  began  to  read  from 
an  olive-green  book  that  he  held  in  his  hand.  He 
read  atrociously.  "How  do  you  like  this?"  he  said. 
"H'm?"  He  said  "H'm"  with  a  little  snarl  in  it. 
i  "The  Dog  Star  and  Aldebaran,  pointing  to  the 
restless  Pleiades,  were  half  up  the  southern  sky, 
and  between  them  hung  Orion,  which  gorgeous  con- 
stellation never  burnt  more  vividly  than  now,  as  it 
swung  itself  forth  above  the  rim  of  the  landscape ; 
Castor  and  Pollux  with  their  quiet  shine  were  al- 
most on  the  meridian:  the  barren  and  gloomy 
square  of  Pegasus  was  creeping  round  to  the  North- 
West;  far  away  through  the  plantation  Vega 
sparkled  like  a  lamp  suspended  amid  the  leafless 
trees,  and  Cassiopeia's  chair  stood  daintily  poised 
in  the  uppermost  boughs." 

Edwin  thought  it  was  "fine." 

"Better  than  the  Story  of  the  Heavens  f"  asked 


GOLDEN  MEDIOCRITY  19 

Mr.  Heal.    "Come,  come,  Ingleby  .  .  .  surely  not?" 

"Bather,  sir,"  said  Edwin. 

Mr.  Heal  shut  the  book.  "The  barren  and  gloomy 
square  of  Pegasus,"  he  murmured  to  himself.  And 
all  the  rest  of  that  evening  Edwin  found  himself 
remembering  the  phrase.  The  bareness  and  the 
gloom  of  Pegasus  had  never  struck  him  before ;  and 
now,  at  a  sudden  suggestion,  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  the  sky  had  changed ;  the  vague  heavens  became 
habitable  to  his  fancy;  new  and  immense  territory 
opened  before  him.  .  .  . 

He  told  Widdup  what  he  remembered  of  the  pas- 
sage that  Heal  had  read. 

"Poor  old  Tommy,"  said  Widdup  compassionate- 
ly. "It  isn't  an  exact  square  at  all.  It's  an  irregular 
quadrilateral,  and  I  don't  see  anything  gloomy 
about  it.  Stars  aren't  gloomy  anyway.  Look  how 
they  sparkle.  Look  at  Vega." 

Above  the  gable  of  the  swimming  bath  that  won- 
derful star  throbbed  white. 

n 

In  the  Lent  term  they  both  had  measles  and  woke 
with  swollen  eyes  to  find  each  other  side  by  side. 
In  the  same  ward  at  the  Sanatorium  was  Layton's 
successor,  Payne,  a  thawed,  thin,  almost  unfamiliar 
Payne ;  and  while  they  swam  upon  the  first  buoyant 
spirits  of  convalescence,  the  sheer  hulk  of  Griffin 
was  hove  in,  in  the  snivelling  misery  of  the  early 
stages.  Edwin  thought  that  Griffin  had  never 
looked  so  beastly,  and  rejoiced  in  the  pig's  humilia- 
tion ;  but  when,  at  last,  Griffin  recovered  he  found 
his  ancient  victim  a  handy  plaything,  and  for  want 


20  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

of  anything  better  to  do  attempted  to  seduce  Wid- 
dup  from  Edwin's  friendship.  Edwin  never  quite 
forgave  Widdup  his  defection ;  and  when  they  were 
all  better  and  back  in  school  again  he  found  that 
he  still  had  to  avoid  Griffin  on  whom  the  habit  of 
persecution  had  been  regrafted.  It  seemed  such  a 
pity  ...  he  thought  he  had  outgrown  all  that  sort 
of  thing. 

And  now  he  hated  Griffin  for  a  new  reason. 
While  they  were  together  in  the  Sanatorium,  after 
the  departure  of  Payne,  Griffin  had  spoken  boast- 
fully of  his  relations  with  one  of  the  "Skivvies" 
whose  morning  task  was  the  making  of  beds  in  D 
dormitory.  It  appeared  that  Griffin  had  met  her 
first  by  accident,  and  later  by  appointment,  and 
he  himself  described  her  as  "very  hot  pastry."  He 
was  familiar  with  certain  shops  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Shaftesbury  Avenue,  which  made  per- 
suasion easy.  To  Edwin,  whose  life  at  home  had 
kept  him  in  ignorance  of  all  that  a  boy  of  fifteen 
ought  to  know,  everything  sounded  horrible,  and 
he  said  so.  He  remembered  the  look  of  the  girl 
quite  well :  rather  anaemic  with  black  hair  and  a 
pretty  oval  face.  Griffin  and  Widdup  howled  over 
Ms  innocence,  and  began  to  instruct  him  in  the 
"origins  of  life."  All  these  things  came  as  a  great 
shock  to  Edwin.  He  felt  a  passionate  conviction 
that  the  other  two  were  fooling  him.  Unfortunately 
his  father  had  never  employed  a  coachman. 

"I  don't  believe  a  bit  of  it,"  he  said  with  tears 
in  his  eyes. 

"You  silly  kid,"  said  Widdup.  "Everybody 
knows  it's  true." 


GOLDEN  MEDIOCRITY  21 

"I  don't  believe  my  father  would  do  a  thing  like 
that,"  cried  Edwin. 

It  seemed  suddenly  as  if  the  world  had  become  a 
gross  and  horrible  planet.  The  fetters  of  earth 
were  galling  his  limbs.  He  felt  a  sudden  immense 
yearning  for  the  coolness  and  cleanliness  of  stellar 
space.  If  only  he  could  pass  the  rest  of  his  life  in 
the  great  square  of  Pegasus !  .  .  .  And  he  was  con- 
soled by  the  assurance  that  in  heaven,  at  any  rate, 
there  was  no  marrying  or  giving  in  marriage.  .  .  . 

m 

Next  term,  to  his  great  joy,  he  was  moved  up 
into  the  Upper  Fourth,  and  had  for  his  form-master 
the  gentle  Mr.  Leeming,  a  fat  and  cheerful  cleric 
with  clean-shaven  cheeks  that  shone  like  those  of 
a  trumpet-blowing  cherub.  He  was  very  short- 
sighted, rather  lazy,  and  intensely  grateful  for  the 
least  spark  of  intelligence  to  be  found  in  his  class. 
Edwin  soon  attracted  him  by  his  history  and  essays. 
His  mother  had  fulfilled  her  promise  of  reading 
The  Fortunes  of  Nigel  aloud  in  the  holidays,  and, 
as  luck  would  have  it  again,  the  Upper  •Fourth 
were  supposed  to  be  concentrating  on  the  early 
Stuarts.  To  the  bulk  of  the  form  the  period  was  a 
vast  and  almost  empty  chamber  like  the  big  school- 
room, inhabited  by  one  or  two  stiff  figures,  devital- 
ised by  dates — a  very  dreary  place.  But  to  Edwin 
it  was  crowded  with  the  swaggerers  of  Alsatia,  the 
bravoes  of  Whitehall,  with  prentices,  and  penniless 
Scotchmen,  and  all  the  rest  of  Scott's  gallant  com- 
pany. 


22  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Have  any  of  you  read  Nigel?"  Mr.  Leeming 
asked  the  class. 

"I  have,  sir,"  said.  Edwin  shyly. 

"I  have  already  gathered  so,  Ingleby.  Has  any- 
body else  read,  it?" 

Silence.  "I  think  I  shall  ask  the  head  master 
to  set  it  to  the  Middle  School  as  a  holiday  task," 
said  Mr.  Leeming. 

Thus  narrowly  did  Edwin  escape  the  disaster  of 
having  Scott  spoiled  for  him. 

Mr.  Leeming  was  the  master  in  charge  of  the 
library,  and  Edwin  began  to  spend  the  long  winter 
lock-ups  in  this  room.  Most  of  the  boys  who  fre- 
quented it  came  there  for  the  bound  volumes  of  the 
Illustrated  London  News,  with  their  pictures  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War,  Irish  evictions,  the  launch- 
ing of  the  Great  Eastern,  and  mild  excitements  of 
that  kind.  Edwin  found  himself  drawn  early  to 
the  bookcase  that  held  the  poets.  To  his  great  joy 
he  discovered  that  the  key  of  his  playbox  fitted  the 
case;  and  so  he  would  sometimes  sneak  into  the 
room  at  odd  moments  in  the  day  and  carry  away 
with  him  certain  slim  green  volumes  from  the  top 
shelf.  These  were  Johnson's  Lives  of  the  Poets, 
together  with  their  Complete  Works.  He  had  been 
attracted  to  them  in  the  first  place  by  the  memory 
of  a  polished  urn,  about  as  graceful  in  contour  as 
a  carpenter's  baluster,  that  stood  in  a  neglected 
corner  of  the  parish  church  at  home.  This  urn  was 
encircled  by  a  scroll  which  bore  these  directions : — 

"O  smite  thy  breast  and  drop  a  tear — 
For  know  thy  Shenstone's  dust  lies  here." 


GOLDEN  MEDIOCRITY  23 

A  palpable  falsehood;  for  Edwin  had  already  dis- 
covered the  tomb  of  the  elegist  in  another  part  of 
the  churchyard,  elbowed  almost  into  the  path  by 
that  of  a  Victorian  ironmonger. 

But  it  was  something  to  have  been  born  in  the 
same  parish  as  a  poet ;  and  Edwin,  at  an  age  when 
everything  is  a  matter  of  taking  sides,  ranged  him- 
self boldly  with  Shenstone  and  pitted  his  judgment 
against  that  of  Johnson,  who  rather  sniffed  at  the 
poet's  unreality,  and  quoted  Gray's  letters  in  his 
despite.  The  crook  and  the  pipe  and  the  kid  were 
to  Edwin  very  real  things,  as  one  supposes  they 
were  almost  real  to  the  age  of  the  pastoral  ballad; 
and  the  atmosphere  was  the  more  vital  to  him  be- 
cause he  dimly  remembered  the  sight  of  the  poet's 
lawns  frosted  on  misty  mornings  of  winter,  the 
sighing  of  the  Leasowes  beeches,  and  the  damp 
drippings  of  the  winter  woods.  Thus  he  absorbed 
not  only  Shenstone  but  Shenstone's  contempora- 
ries: men  like  Dyer  and  Lyttleton  and  Akenside, 
and  since  he  had  no  other  standard  than  that  of 
Johnson  he  classed  them  by  the  same  lights  as  their 
contemporaries.  Brooding  among  Augustan  poet- 
asters in  the  library  Mr.  Leeming  found  him. 

"Poetry,  Ingleby?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Let  me  see?  Prior?  Ah,  that  was  a  little  age, 
Ingleby !  The  Augustans  were  not  great  men,  and 
some  of  them  were  very  coarse,  too.  Have  you 
read  the  Idylls  of  the  King?" 

Mr.  Leeming  introduced  Ingleby  to  the  great 
Victorian,  for  he  himself  was  an  ardent  believer  in 
all  the  Galahad  nonsense,  and  was  astonished  at 


24  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Ingleby's  ignorance  of  the  school  in  which  those 
cherubic  cheeks  had  expanded.  He  was  very  fond 
of  talking  about  purity  and  conceived  it  his  duty 
to  keep  his  class  spotless.  In  the  Lent  Term,  when 
the  form  were  working  through  the  catechism,  his 
glosses  were  most  apparent.  The  explanation  of 
some  passages  troubled  him.  "From  fornication 
.  .  .  that's  a  bad  thing,"  he  would  mutter. 

And  once  having  put  Edwin  in  the  way  of  per- 
fection he  was  not  going  to  look  back.  A  week  or 
two  later  he  asked  him  how  he  was  getting  on  with 
Tennyson.  "Who  is  your  favourite  character  in 
the  Idylls?"  he  asked. 

Edwin  glowed.     "Oh,  sir,  Launcelot — or  Bors." 

"But  what  about  Sir  Percivale?  'Sir  Percivale 
whom  Arthur  and  his  knighthood  called  "The 
Pure," ' "  he  quoted  in  the  Oxford  variety  of 
Cockney. 

"I  don't  know,  sir,"  stammered  Edwin.  r<They 
seem  somehow  made  differently  from  me." 

"Arthur,"  said  Mr.  Leeming  impressively,  "has 
a  great  and  wonderful  prototype  whom  we  should 
all  try  to  imitate  no  matter  how  distantly." 

Edwin,  who  had  read  the  dedication,  wondered 
why  Mr.  Leeming  lowered  his  voice  like  that  in 
speaking  of  the  Prince  Consort. 

In  some  ways  he  was  grateful  to  Mr.  Leeming 
for  superintending  his  literary  diet,  but  he  soon 
detected  a  sameness  in  the  fare.  One  day  he  had 
got  hold  of  a  big  Maroon  edition  of  George  Gordon, 
Lord  Byron,  with  romantic  engravings  of  the  New- 
stead  ruins  and  the  poet's  own  handsome  head,  and 
Mr.  Leeming  had  swooped  down  on  him,  faintly 


GOLDEN  MEDIOCRITY  25 

flushed.  "Lord  Byron,"  he  had  said,  "was  not  a 
good  man.  Have  you  read  Hiawatha  f"  And  he 
reached  down  Longfellow  .  .  .  Longfellow  in  green 
boards  decorated  with  a  geometrical  design  in  gold, 
and  irritating  to  the  touch. 

At  last  Edwin  was  almost  driven  from  the  library 
by  Mr.  Leeming's  attentions.  He  never  read  Byron 
because  the  books  were  too  big  to  be  sneaked  out  of 
the  room  beneath  a  buttoned  coat;  but  he  did  read, 
without  distinction,  nearly  every  volume  of  poetry 
that  he  could  smuggle  out  in  this  way.  He  read 
these  books  in  second  "prep"  when  Layton  was  por- 
ing over  Plato  at  his  high  desk,  when  Widdup  was 
working  out  the  cricket  averages  of  the  second 
eleven,  and  Griffin  was  looking  for  spicy  bits  in  the 
Bible.  And  as  second  prep  was  generally  a  period 
of  great  sleepiness — since  the  boys  had  risen  so- 
early,  and  by  that  time  of  evening  the  air  of  the 
house  classroom  had  been  breathed  and  rebreathed 
so  many  times  as  to  be  almost  narcotic,  the  poetry 
that  he  read  became  interwoven  with  the  strands 
of  his  dreams.  Dreamy  and  exalted,  poppy- 
drenched,  all  poetry  seemed  at  this  time;  and  it 
was  to  intensify  this  feeling  of  sensuous  languor 
that  he  so  often  chose  the  poems  of  Keats. 

In  an  introduction  to  the  volume  he  had  dis- 
covered that  Keats  had  been  an  apothecary,  and 
this  filled  him  with  a  strange  glow;  for  since  the 
unforgettable  incident  of  the  toothbrush  he  had 
been  (against  his  will)  diffident  about  his  father. 
He  determined  never  again  to  be  ashamed  of  the 
shop.  When  he  read  of  "rich  lucent  syrops  tinct 
with  cinnamon,"  he  remembered  a  great  cut-glass 


26          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

bottle  of  some  cough  linctus  that  glowed  like  a  ruby 
in  the  shop  window  when  the  gas  was  lit  at  night. 
In  other  ways  he  tapped  a  good  deal  of  the  romance 
of  his  father's  calling.  He  remembered  a  drawer 
labelled  "Dragon's  blood"  .  .  .  the  very  next  best 
thing  to  a  dragon's  teeth  with  their  steely  harvest. 
He  recalled  a  whole  pomander-full  of  provocative 
scents;  he  shuddered  at  the  remembered  names  of 
poisons,  and  other  names  that  suggested  alchemy. 
He  almost  wanted  to  tell  Mr.  Leeming  when  next 
they  spoke  together,  of  his  father's  trade,  but  he 
wasn't  quite  sure  if  Mr.  Leeming  approved  of  Keats. 
It  was  not  likely  that  he  would  see  very  much  more 
of  this  master,  for  he  was  high  up  in  his  form  and 
certain  to  get  a  move  into  the  Lower  Fifth  at  the 
end  of  the  term.  In  some  ways  he  was  not  sorry; 
for  the  signs  of  Mr.  Leeming's  affection,  the  warm 
encircling  arm,  the  pervading  scent  of  honeydew, 
and  the  na'ive  glances  of  those  watery  eyes  were 
embarrassing.  Before  they  parted  Mr.  Leeming 
showed  his  intentions  more  clearly. 

"Would  you  like  to  learn  Hebrew,  Ingleby?"  he 
said. 

Edwin  would  have  liked  to  learn  Hebrew — but 
not  out  of  school  hours.  He  hesitated. 

"I  thought  you  might  some  day  wish  to  take  Holy 
Orders,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  teach  you." 

"I  will  ask  my  father,  sir,"  said  Edwin  modestly. 

That  was  one  of  the  penalties  of  having  interest- 
ing eyes. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  GREEN  TREES  . 


THE  holidays  that  followed  this  term  were  the 
most  marvellous.  From  first  to  last  they  were 
bathed  in  the  atmosphere  of  mellow  gold  that 
makes  beautiful  some  evenings  of  spring,  all  tender 
and  bird-haunted;  and  his  mother,  too,  was  more 
wonderful  than  she  had  ever  been  before.  On  the 
very  first  evening  when  she  had  come  upstairs  to 
tuck  him  in  and  to  kiss  him  good-night,  she  sat  on 
the  bedstead  leaning  over  him  with  both  her  arms 
round  his  neck  and  whispering  secrets  to  him.  Very 
extraordinary  they  were;  and  as  she  told  him,  her 
lips  were  soft  on  his  cheek.  She  said  that  only  a 
month  before  she  had  expected  to  have  a  baby  sister 
for  him — she  had  always  longed  so  much  to  have  a 
baby  girl — and  before  the  first  jealousy  that  had 
flamed  up  into  his  mind  had  died  away,  she  told 
him  how  the  baby  had  been  born  dead,  and  how 
terribly  she  had  felt  the  disappointment.  He  won- 
dered, in  the  dark,  if  she  were  crying. 

"But  now  that  I've  got  my  other  baby  again," 
she  said,  "I  am  going  to  forget  all  about  it.  We'll 
be  ever  so  happy  by  ourselves,  Eddie,  won't  we? 
In  the  evenings  when  father  is  down  at  business 

27 


28  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

we  will  read  together.  This  time  we'll  take  turns 
reading,  for  you're  growing  such  a  big  boy.  And 
we'll  go  wonderful  walks,  only  not  very  far,  because 
Dr.  Thornhouse  says  I'm  not  strong  enough  yet. 
I  want  you  to  tell  me  everything — everything  you 
do  and  think  about  at  school,  because  you're  all  I've 
got  now.  And  you're  part  of  me,  Eddie,  really." 
At  this  she  clutched  him  passionately. 

For  a  moment  Edwin  was  nearly  crying,  and 
then,  suddenly,  he  saw  another  side  of  it:  her  ex- 
pressed feelings  were  somehow  foreign  to  him  and 
made  him  ashamed,  as  did  Mr.  Leeming's  watery 
eyes  when  he  talked  about  Arthur's  prototype.  In 
the  face  of  this  eager  emotion  he  felt  himself  un- 
responsive and  a  little  consciously  superior  and 
male.  He  didn't  want  to  feel  superior  to  his  mother 
1 — but  there  it  was!  Even  at  breakfast  next  morn- 
ing he  was  shy,  and  it  surprised  him  when  he  saw 
her  clear  gray-green  eyes  wholly  free  from  any  an- 
swering shame.  So  unconscious  was  she  of  his 
scrutiny  that  he  went  on  looking  at  her — really 
looked  at  her  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  And 
looking,  he  began  to  differentiate  this  new  being, 
so  fragile  and  eager  and  girlish,  from  the  old  tra- 
ditional mother  whom  he  had  loved  and  accepted 
as  unquestionably  as  the  miles  of  blue  sky  above 
him.  He  discovered  that  she  was  a  woman,  remem- 
bered Griffin,  and  blushed. 

"What  a  colour  you've  got,  boy,"  said  his  father. 

And  it  struck  him  also  that  she  was  smaller  than 
she  used  to  be. 

"Isn't  mother  rather  thin?"  he  asked  his  father. 

Mr.  Ingleby  smiled,  and  in  his  grave,  shy  way 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  29 

put  out  his  hand  to  touch  hers  as  it  lay  on  the 
table. 

"You  silly  boy,"  said  his  mother. 

But  her  denials  did  not  satisfy  him.  He  knew, 
for  certain,  that  she  was  different  from  the  mother 
whom  he  had  known.  He  noticed,  too,  that  she 
was  not  allowed  to  eat  the  same  food  as  the  rest 
of  them.  Sometimes  she  would  forget  their  rules 
and  taste  things  that  were  forbidden,  and  then 
his  father  would  gravely  reprove  her.  Instead  of 
bread  she  was  ordered  to  eat  a  sort  of  biscuit  which 
Edwin's  curiosity  made  him  anxious  to  taste.  He 
was  disappointed;  for  they  had  no  taste  at  all. 
"What  are  they  made  of?"  he  asked;  and  they  told 
him  "Gluten.  .  .  .  That's  the  sticky  part  of  wheat 
without  starch." 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  her  illness,  they  had  never 
been  happier  together.  The  new  intimacy,  that 
had  begun  with  her  painful  confidences  of  the  first 
evening,  continued.  In  particular  she  told  him  of 
the  difficulties  which  she  was  having  with  his 
Aunt  Laura,  her  sister,  who  had  lately  married 
a  small  manufacturer  and  come  to  live  near 
Halesby.  The  story  was  an  old  one  and  rather 
unhappy.  It  began  years  and  years  ago  in  the 
days  of  his  mother's  childhood,  days  that  she  re- 
membered so  unhappily  that  she  never  really 
wanted  to  recall  them.  He  had  never  before  known 
anything  about  his  mother's  childhood.  He  had 
just  taken  her  for  granted  in  her  present  surround- 
ings. Kow,  in  the  long  firelight  evenings,  she  told 
him  how  her  forefathers  and  his  had  once  been 
great  people,  living  in  a  stone  border  castle  high 


30  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

above  the  Monmouth  marches,  and  how,  with  the 
lapse  of  time  and  the  decay  of  the  bloody  age  in 
which  their  violence  had  prospered,  the  family  had 
fallen  from  its  estate  and  lost  its  lands;  how  the 
tower  of  the  castle  had  been  broken  and  under  its 
shadow  a  farmhouse  had  arisen  in  which  they  had 
lived  and  scraped  what  income  they  could  make 
from  a  little  valley-land  and  many  acres  of  moun- 
tain pasture.  Now  there  were  none  of  them  left 
there;  but  still,  where  the  tracks  grew  stony  and 
the  orchards  began  to  thin  away,  the  walls  of  the 
house  crumbled  patiently  under  the  shadow  of  over- 
hanging mountain-ridges.  "Your  grandfather  was 
the  last  of  them,  Eddie,"  she  said.  "He  was  a  farm- 
er." And  for  a  moment  consciousness  of  Griffin 
and  his  social  prejudices  invaded  the  picture.  She 
told  him  of  spring  days,  when  the  clouds  would 
come  sweeping  out  of  England  on  the  back  of  the 
east  wind  and  be  hurried  like  the  frothy  comb  of 
a  wave  against  the  mountains,  and  how  they  would 
then  break  asunder  on  the  darens  and  fall  back  in 
a  drenching  mist  over  the-lonely  house  by  Felindre, 
and  for  days  the  farm  would  be  islanded  in  fog. 
But  on  the  summit  above  them,  the  sheep  were 
grazing  in  the  sunlight  and  the  buzzards  hunting, 
and  in  the  misty  lowlands  beneath  lay  orchards 
full  of  faint-scented  apple  blossom.  "We  were  not 
the  only  decayed  family  there,"  she  said.  "There 
were  others,  and  greater — such  as  the  Grosmonts 
of  Trecastel.  But  old  Mr.  Grosmont  had  two  sons, 
and  father  only  had  three  daughters.  I  was  a  sort 
of  ugly  duckling,  Eddie;  they  never  really  liked 
me.  And  I  was  never  happy  there." 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  31 

"I  think  I  must  be  like  you,  darling,"  said  Edwin. 
"I  had  a  rotten  time  at  St.  Luke's  at  first.  Even 
now  I  don't  quite  seem  to  be  ...  I  don't  know 
.  .  .  ordinary." 

She  smiled  and  kissed  him. 

"My  father  was  a  dear,"  she  said,  "but  mother 
really  hated  me.  Your  Aunt  Carrie  was  much 
cleverer  and  better-looking  than  me,  and  so  they 
always  made  a  fuss  of  her  and  left  me  to  myself. 
She  had  all  the  advantages.  You  see,  I  suppose 
they  thought  she  was  worth  it.  She  was  a  beautiful, 
selfish  creature,  with  the  most  lovely  hair." 

"I'm  sure  it  wasn't  lovelier  than  yours,  darling," 
said  Edwin. 

"Then  she  went  and  threw  herself  away,  as 
mother  called  it,  on  a  man  she  met  at  a  hunt  ball 
in  Hereford.  And  she  died,  poor  thing,  with  her 
first  baby.  It  was  an  awful  blow  to  mother.  It 
made  her  more  horrid  to  me  than  ever.  I  suppose 
she  found  me  such  a  poor  substitute.  If  it  had 
been  me  it  wouldn't  have  mattered.  I  went  to 
keep  house  for  your  great-uncle  in  North  Brom- 
wich;  and  there  I  met  your  father.  I  have  never 
been  really  happy.  You  see,  nobody  had  ever  taken 
any  notice  of  me — before  that.  Then  mother  began 
to  put  all  the  hopes  that  had  been  disappointed  in 
Carrie  on  Aunt  Laura.  Nothing  was  too  good  for 
her.  They  spoiled  her,  and  spoiled  her.  It  was 
worse  when  father  died  and  mother  was  left  to  do 
what  she  liked  with  the  money.  And  when  your 
Aunt  Laura  came  here  and  met  Mr.  Fellows  and 
married  him,  your  grandmother  blamed  me.  I 
couldn't  help  it  ...  and  in  any  case  Mr.  Fellows 


32  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

is  an  awfully  nice,  quiet  man.  I  did  all  I  could 
for  her,  too,  getting  her  house  ready  and  that  sort 
of  thing,  and  now  she's  so  dreadfully  difficult.  I 
suppose  she's  really  annoyed  to  think  that  she 
hasn't  done  better  for  herself  with  all  her  ad- 
vantages of  education,  and  just  lets  it  off  on  me.  It's 
dreadfully  awkward,  Eddie.  I  think  she's  even 
jealous  that  their  house  isn't  as  big  as  ours.  I 
simply  daren't  tell  your  father  the  sort  of  things 
she's  said.  If  he  knew  one  of  them  he'd  never  for- 
give her.  He's  like  that  about  anything  that  affects 
me." 

"I  should  be,  too,"  said  Edwin. 

"Would  you?"  she  smiled. 

"Yes.  .  .  .  You've  made  me  hate  Aunt  Laura 
already." 

"You  mustn't  feel  like  that,  Eddie.  She's  young, 
and  she's  been  spoilt.  It  isn't  all  her  fault,  prob- 
ably." 

"If  it  were  any  one  but  you  I  wouldn't  mind. 
But  you're  so  wonderful."  He  loved  to  look  into 
her  eyes  when  she  loved  him. 

n 

After  this  they  had  wonderful  times  together. 
In  the  mornings  Edwin  would  indulge  his  glorious 
idleness  among  the  books  of  the  dining-room 
shelves,  and  after  middle-day  dinner,  when  hia 
father  had  gone  back  to  the  shop,  he  would  set 
out  with  his  mother  up  the  lane  under  the  tall 
elms  and  through  the  sloping  field  that  led  to  the 
mill  pond.  They  did  not  walk  very  far  because  she 
must  not  be  over- tired ;  but  the  field  was  so  crowded 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  33 

with  wonders  that  they  were  tempted  further. 
Cowslips  steeped  the  meadows  in  their  vinous  per- 
fume; and  between  the  saplings  of  the  hazel  copse 
they  saw  the  sheeted  hyacinths  gleaming  like  pools 
that  mirror  the  sky  in  open  places.  Beyond  the 
land  of  meadows  and  copses  they  came  to  a  belt  of 
the  old  forest,  through  which  they  could  see  up  a 
broad  green  lane  to  the  very  shoulders  of  the  hills : 
Pen  Beacon  heaving  its  fleece  of  black  firs,  and  the 
domed  head  of  Uffdown. 

His  mother  would  sigh  a  little  when  she  saw 
the  hills.  In  weather  that  threatened  rain  from 
the  west  they  would  seem  so  near,  with  their  con- 
tour hard  against  the  watery  sky  and  the  cloud 
shadows  all  prussian  blue. 

"Oh,  I  should  love  to  be  there,  Edwin,"  she  would 
say. 

"Can't  we  walk  there  some  day,  dearest?" 

"It's  such  a  terrible  drag  up.  We  should  both 
be  dreadfully  tired." 

"Oh,  I  wish  we  could,  mother;  I  do  wish  we 
could." 

The  day  of  their  last  walk  together,  when  they 
came  to  the  end  of  the  green  lane  and  were  sitting 
on  the  gate,  she  jumped  down  on  the  far  side  and 
set  off  walking  up  the  track. 

"Come  along,  Eddie,"  she  said,  "I'm  going  up  to 
Uffdown." 

"Oh,  mother,"  he  cried.  "Isn't  it  too  far?  I 
should  like  to  carry  you !" 

And  half-doubting,  but  fearfully  eager  for  ad- 
venture, they  set  off  together.  As  they  climbed  up- 
ward it  seemed  that  the  air  grew  sweeter  every 


34  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

moment,  and  when  they  had  left  the  wood  behind 
them  they  came  out  on  to  a  stony  lane  with  a  sur- 
face of  grit  veined  by  the  tracks  of  storm-water, 
and  on  either  side  banks  of  tufted  grass  along 
which  gorse  was  swaying  in  the  breeze.  And  here 
the  clouds  seemed  to  be  racing  close  above  their 
heads,  all  dazzling  white,  and  the  blue  in  which 
they  moved  was  deep  and  limpid.  Mrs.  Ingleby's 
gray-green  eyes  were  full  of  laughter  and  her  face 
flushed  with  the  climb. 

"Oh,  mother,"  Edwin  panted,  "what  an  awful 
lick  you  go !  Hadn't  we  better  sit  down  a  bit?" 

"And  catch  cold!  You  careless  boy.  We'll  get 
to  the  top  soon  now." 

"But  you  mustn't  tire  yourself." 

She  laughed  at  him. 

"Oh,  this  air  is  wonderful,"  she  said.  "Just  as  if 
it  had  come  straight  out  of  the  blue,  all  washed 
and  clean." 

On  the  top  of  Uffdown  where  the  cloak  of  pine 
droops  to  a  hollow  between  the  two  peaks,  they 
sat  on  a  dry,  yielding  hedge-side,  where  the  grass 
was  thick  as  the  fleece  of  a  mountain  sheep,  and 
four  lovely  counties  dreamed  below  them. 

"Eddie,"  she  asked,  half  joking,  "where  does  the 
west  wind  come  from?" 

Edwin  was  willing  to  instruct. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,  dearest — from  Wales  and  the 
sea,  I  suppose." 

"Put  your  head  close  to  mine  and  I'll  show  you. 
.  .  .  Those  hills  that  look  like  mountains  cut  out 
of  blue  cardboard  are  the  Malverns,  and  far,  ever 
so  far  beyond  them — yes,  just  to  the  left  you  see 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  35 

/ 

a  level  ridge  that  drops  suddenly  in  the  west.    You 
don't  know  what  that  is,  Eddie,  do  yon?" 

"No — I  don't  like  to  look  at  single  things.  I  like 
to  feel  it's  all — what  d'you  call  it? — all  dreamy 
underneath  one." 

"But  you  must  look  at  that.  It's  the  mountain, 
Eddie,  close  to  where  I  was  born." 

"Felindre?"  he  asked. 

"Yes." 

"But  I  never  knew  that  you  could  see  it  from 
here.  You  never  told  me." 

"You  know  why.  I  told  you  that  I  was  never 
happy  there.  And  now,  you  see,  since  the  old  peo- 
ple died  and  the  land  was  sold,  it  really  has  nothing 
to  do  with  us." 

"Still,  it's  rather  wonderful  to  be  looking  into — 
into  another  country.  It  is  Wales,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes — part  of  it's  in  Wales.  Felindre  is  in  Eng- 
land." 

Edwin  pondered  for  a  moment. 

"I'm  rather  glad  I'm  not  half- Welsh,  anyway," 
he  said.  "But  I  wish  I'd  been  there." 

"Do  3rou?"  she  answered  dreamily.  "Yes — I  wish 
we  had  been  there  together.  It  was  a  different  sort 
of  life.  I  thought — I  just  thought  I  should  like 
to  see  it  again." 

He  was  a  little  alarmed  at  the  wistf  ulness  in  her 
voice. 

"Mother — what  do  you  mean?"  he  cried. 

"Nothing,  Eddie,  nothing.    It  was  another  life." 

She  put  her  arms  round  his  neck  and  pulled  him 
gently  to  her.  He  was  content  to  lie  there,  with 
his  head  on  her  breast,  while  she  talked  in  a  low 


36  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

voice  of  that  distant  place  and  of  her  own  child- 
hood. He  listened  in  a  dream  and  did  not  speak  at 
all  until  she  began  to  tell  him  a  long  story  which 
the  Felindre  shepherd,  Morgan,  had  told  her  when 
she  was  a  child.  Then  Edwin  opened  his  eyes  and 
stopped  her. 

"Dearest,  I  know  that  story,"  he  said.  "Oh,  go 
on,  it's  wonderful.  .  .  ." 

"Perhaps  I've  told  it  to  you  before:  perhaps  I 
told  you  when  you  were  a  baby — I  used  to  talk 
to  you  a  great  deal  in  your  cradle.  Perhaps  .  .  . 
I  was  rather  lonely  when  you  came,  Eddie." 

"Oh,  no,  I'm  sure  you  haven't.  .  .  ." 

"Look,  the  cloud  is  blotting  out  my  mountain 
now,"  she  said.  "It  is  time  we  were  going."  The 
counties  were  asleep  already. 

Over  the  brow  of  the  hill  they  stepped  into  a 
different  world,  for  where  the  smoke  of  the  black 
country  had  blotted  the  fading  skyline  a  hundred 
pit  fires  were  beginning  to  blink  out,  and  nearer 
still  a  pillar  of  flame  shot  up  into  the  sky. 

"Oh,  look,  mother,"  Edwin  cried. 

"They're  puddling  the  iron  at  the  great  Mawne 
furnaces.  Stand  still  a  moment,  we  might  almost 
hear  their  roar." 

But  no  sound  came  to  them  but  the  clear  tinkle 
of  a  stream  plunging  into  its  mossy  cup,  and  thia 
seemed  to  bring  them  back  into  touch  with  the 
lands  that  they  had  left.  They  hurried  down 
through  the  dark  woodland  paths,  and  when  they 
reached  the  little  town  lights  had  bloomed  in  all 
the  ugly  cottage  windows,  and  the  streets  seemed 
deserted,  for  the  children  were  indoors. 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  37 

in 

She  told  him  that  she  was  rather  tired,  and  would 
like  to  lie  down  and  rest  for  a  little  time  before 
supper;  and  with  the  glow  of  the  hill  air  still  on 
his  cheeks  and  his  limbs  full  of  a  delicious  lassitude 
he  strolled  down  the  lane  and  into  the  ill-lighted 
street  of  the  town.  He  passed  through  the  little 
passage  at  the  side  of  the  shop  and  through  the 
dark  bottle-room  where  he  had  to  pick  his  way 
among  drug  hampers  and  empty  acid-carboys. 
Through  the  upper  part  of  the  glass  door  he  could 
see  his  father  sitting  on  a  high  stool  at  the  desk, 
his  spectacles  half-way  down  his  nose,  dreaming 
among  the  bad  debts  in  his  ledger.  Edwin  stood 
there  for  several  minutes,  for  the  picture  fascinated 
him. 

Mr.  Ingleby  had  now  reached  the  indeterminate 
period  of  middle  age:  his  hair  was  gray,  rather 
thin  about  the  crown,  and  wanted  cutting.  In  the 
shop  he  always  wore  a  black  alpaca  jacket,  and 
this,  by  reason  of  its  thinness,  made  his  chest  look 
mean  and  skimpy.  In  this  state  of  comparative 
repose  he  was  not  impressive.  From  time  to  time 
he  raised  his  hand  to  scratch  his  shoulder.  A  cus- 
tomer came  in  to  buy  a  ca~ke  of  soap  and  Mr. 
Ingleby  climbed  down  from  his  stool  to  attend  to 
her.  He  opened  a  glass  case,  and,  groping  for  this 
particular  soap,  upset  at  least  half  a  dozen  others. 
Edwin  noticed  his  hands,  which  were  clumsy  and 
heavily  veined  on  the  back,  and  felt  sorry  for  him 
when  he  stooped  to  pick  up  the  cakes  of  soap  that 
he  had  upset.  It  all  seemed  so  inelastic,  so  different 


38  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

from  the  eager  youth  of  his  mother.  Examining 
his  father  from  a  physical  standpoint  he  recalled 
the  day  on  which  Widdup  had  begun  his  sexual 
education  and  had  laughed  at  his  innocent  ideals. 
Now  Edwin  laughed  at  himself;  and  the  laugh 
made  Mr.  Ingleby  look  up  as  if  a  flying  beetle  had 
banged  against  his  ear. 

"Hallo,  boy,"  he  said.  "You  were  late  for  tea, 
you  two !" 

"Oh,  we  had  a  lovely  walk — right  on  to  Uff- 
down." 

"I  hope  you  didn't  tire  your  mother.  You  must 
be  careful,  Eddie.  Do  you  want  me  to  give  you 
something  to  do?  You  shall  weigh  these  powders 
then :  Phenacetin,  five  grains  in  each.  Only  try  to 
be  quiet;  I  have  to  get  on  with  these  Lady-day 
bills." 

Mr.  Ingleby  yawned  and  Edwin  started  to  weigh 
powders. 

"Father,  what  is  Dragon's  Blood?" 

"It  isn't  the  blood  of  dragons,  Edwin.  .  .  ."  Mr. 
Ingleby  smiled  under  his  glasses. 

"Oh,  father,  don't  rot." 

"Dragon's  Blood  is  a  resin.  It's  prepared  from 
Dracwna  Draco,  and  it's  used  for  mahogany  var- 
nishes." 

"O-oh." 

"I'm  sorry  to  disappoint  you,  Edwin." 

Silence  for  five  minutes. 

"Father  .  .  .  Keats  was  a  chemist." 

"Keats?"  Mr.  Ingleby  pronounced  the  word  in 
the  same  tone  as  he  would  have  used  if  he  had  been 
saying  "Kea tings,  madam?" 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  39 

"The  poet." 

"Oh — Keats.  Yes,  of  course  he  was.  He  was 
consumptive,  too.  Died  in  Italy." 

"Yes,  father."  Edwin  was  thankful  to  leave  it 
at  that ;  thankful  that  his  father  knew  just  so  much, 
even  if  he  didn't  know  any  more.  It  would  be 
terrible  to  know  more  than  your  father,  to  feel 
that  he  was  a  sort  of  intellectual  inferior  to  you — 
a  boy  of  fifteen.  He  would  not  talk  of  these  things 
any  more. 

They  walked  home  in  silence.  It  seemed  as  if 
Mr.  Ingleby  were  still  worrying  about  his  wife's 
tiredness,  for  when  she  tried  to  joke  with  him  at 
the  supper  table  he  was  moody  and  restrained. 

"I'm  not  really  a  bit  overdone,"  she  protested, 
kissing  his  forehead. 

"You're  like  a  pair  of  children,  the  two  of  you," 
he  said,  and  indeed  his  gray  seriousness  seemed 
to  isolate  him  from  all  the  joy  of  youth  that  was  in 
them. 

That  night  Edwin's  mother  sat  for  a  long  time 
on  the  bed  talking  to  him  in  a  low  voice.  She 
would  not  tell  him  any  more  about  the  mountain 
farmstead  that  had  once  been  a  castle,  even  when 
he  begged  her  to  do  so.  She  wanted  to  talk,  she 
said,  about  all  that  he  was  to  do  during  the  term, 
to  make  wonderful  plans  for  the  holidays,  when 
the  days  would  be  longer  and  they  would  be  able 
to  sit  out  under  the  limes  on  the  lawn  in  the 
twilight. 

"I  am  going  to  plant  evening  stock,"  she  said, 
"all  along  the  lawn  border  in  between  the  irises. 
Besides,  I  shall  be  stronger  then  and  we  will  often 


40  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

take  our  tea  with  us  to  Uffdown."  And  at  last 
she  said,  "Eddie,  you  bad  boy,  you  must  really  go 
to  sleep  now,  darling.  You've  got  such  a  big 
journey  before  you  to-morrow,  and  you're  sure  to 
get  a  headache  if  you  don't  have  a  good  night's 
sleep."  She  kissed  him  many  times. 

IV 

And  when  she  had  passed  downstairs  to  the  din- 
ing-room where  her  husband  sat  before  the  fire  in 
a  plush  arm-chair,  lightly  dozing,  she  kissed  him, 
too.  She  was  feeling  queerly  flushed  and  emotional, 
and  somehow  the  atmosphere  of  that  little  room 
felt  stuffy  to  her  after  the  air  of  the  open  spaces. 

"I'm  restless  to-night,  dear,"  she  said.  "I  hate 
Eddie  going  back  to  school.  It's  dreadful  to  be 
parted  from  your  baby  just  when  he's  beginning 
to  be  more  and  more  part  of  you." 

"Come  close  to  me,  by  the  fire,  child,"  he  said. 

"No  ...  I  want  some  music,  I  think." 

She  went  into  the  drawing-room  and  lit  the 
candles  on  the  piano.  Sitting  there,  in  the  pale 
light,  with  a  shawl  thrown  over  her  muslin  tea- 
gown,  she  looked  very  frail  and  pathetic,  against 
the  piano's  ebony.  She  played  the  Sonata  Appas- 
sionata  of  Beethoven,  and  the  rather  tawdry  little 
knick-knacks  on  the  piano  danced  as  if  they  were 
made  uncomfortable  by  the  rugged  passion.  The 
whole  room  seemed  a  little  bit  artificial  and  thread- 
bare, ministering  to  her  discontent.  When  the 
Sonata  was  finished  she  still  sat  at  the  piano,  con- 
scious of  her  own  reflection  in  its  polished  panels, 
and  wanting  to  cry.  She  could  not  bear  the  taunt- 


THE  GREEN  TREES  ...  41 

ing  of  that  image,  and  so  she  snuffed  the  candles 
and  sat  in  the  dark. 

Edwin  tossing  on  the  verge  of  sleep  was  conscious 
of  the  music  ceasing,  and,  in  the  silence  that  fol- 
lowed, the  cool  cries  of  the  owls. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MIDSUMMER 


EDWIN  had  expected  that  the  wrench  of  going 
back  to  school  after  these  holidays  would  be 
unbearable:  but  when  he  returned  to  St.  Luke's 
next  day  he  was  almost  astonished  at  his  own  ac- 
ceptance of  the  change.  It  was  evening  when  he 
arrived,  and  boys  who  had  come  from  a  greater 
distance  than  he  were  already  unpacking  their 
play-boxes  in  the  long  box-room.  Edwin  sniffed 
the  smell  which  he  had  once  found  so  alien — that 
mingled  odour  of  cricket  flannels,  biscuits,  bat-oil, 
and  faint  mustiness,  with  relish.  He  passed 
through  the  swing-doorway  into  the  library,  dark 
and  echoing  and  groped  his  way  towards  the  poetry 
bookshelves.  He  ran  his  fingers  over  the  brass 
netting  that  protected  their  case,  he  even  tried  his 
play-box  key  to  see  if  it  had  lost  its  cunning.  The 
lock  opened  easily,  and  he  felt  for  the  backs  of  the 
big  maroon  volumes  of  Byron  with  their  shiny 
title-plates.  He  thought  of  Mr.  Leeming  and  of 
Sir  Percivale.  A  foolish  phrase,  one  of  a  kind  that 
he  had  often  lately  found  running  through  his  brain 
- — rhythmical  groups  of  words  that  meant  nothing 
in  particular — formed  itself  in  his  mind  and  stuck 

42 


MIDSUMMER  43 

there.  "The  white  lie  of  a  blameless  life."  He 
laughed  at  himself.  These  words  that  came  from 
nowhere  were  the  strangest  things.  He  heard  the 
echo  of  his  own  laugh  in  the  dark  and  empty  room. 
The  white  lie  of  a  blameless  life.  ...  It  pleased 
him  to  think  that  he  had  done  with  Mr.  Leeming 
as  a  form-master,  even  though  the  question  of 
Hebrew  and  Holy  Orders  remained  unanswered. 

Stepping  out  of  the  library  he  was  hailed  by 
Widdup;  a  plumper,  sunbrowned  Widdup  fresh 
from  three  weeks  with  a  doctor  uncle  in  Devonshire. 
There  had  been  long  drives  through  the  lanes  at 
the  back  of  Start  Bay  where  the  primroses  (so 
Widdup  assured  him)  were  as  big  as  door-handles; 
there  had  actually  been  sea-bathing  in  April,  and 
the  joy  of  watching  huge  liners,  homeward  bound 
from  Indiar  making  the  Start.  "And  hills  .  .  .'* 
said  Widdup,  "you  never  saw  such  hills.  Talk 
about  these  downs.  .  .  ." 

"It's  awfully  hilly  country  at  home,"  said  Edwin. 

They  were  walking  side  by  side  and  up  and  down 
the  quadrangle,  from  the  gym  to  the  swimming 
bath,  and  dozens  of  couples  were  crossing  and  re- 
crossing  in  the  same  track.  From  time  to  time 
they  would  catch  a  few  words  of  conversation, 
eager  and  excited,  as  they  passed.  Above  them 
stretched  a  deep  sky  powdered  with  dust  of  gold. 

"What  did  you  say?"  said  Widdup.  "I'm  awfully 
sorry,  old  chap.  I  didn't  catch  it.  Douglas  shouted 
to  me.  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  know  .  .  ."  said  Edwin.  "Oh,  yes  . ..  . 
hills.  I  said  there  are  some  ripping  hills  at  home. 
One  called  Uffdown." 


44  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"But  these  hills  in  Devonshire  .  .  .  you've  got 
to  get  out  of  the  trap  for  nearly  every  one.  I  used 
to  drive  my  uncle.  It  was  awful  sport.  You'd 
think  I  was  rotting,  but  it's  true." 

The  chapel  bell  started  tolling  in  short  jerks. 
The  couples  began  to  drift  towards  the  northern 
end  of  the  Quad,  where  the  gates  were  being  un- 
bolted. For  five  minutes  exactly  the  gravel  of  fhe 
wide  path  sloping  to  the  chapel  gave  out  a  grating 
sound  beneath  the  pressure  of  many  hundred  feet. 
The  last  stragglers  hurried  in.  The  master  on  duty 
entered  the  porch.  All  the  life  of  that  dark  mass 
of  buildings  spread  upon  the  bare  edge  of  the  downs 
became  concentrated  within  the  walls  of  the  chapel. 
Its  stained  glass  windows  glowed  as  with  some 
spiritual  radiance.  Inside  they  began  to  sing  the 
hymn  which  is  used  at  the  beginning  of  the  term : — • 

"Kank  by  rank  again  we  stand 
From  the  four  winds  gathered  hither, 
Loud  the  hallowed  walls  demand 
Whence  we  come  and  how  and  whither  .  .  ." 

and  from  the  open  doors  there  issued  a  faintly 
musty  smell,  as  though  indeed  the  dead  air  of  the 
holiday-time  were  dispossessed  and  young  life  had 
again  invaded  its  ancient  haunt. 


It  seemed  to  Edwin  from  the  first  as  though  the 
concentrated  delights  of  this  summer  term  were 
surely  enough  to  efface  every  memory  of  discom- 
fort and  suffering  that  had  clouded  his  early  days 
at  St.  Luke's.  He  was  exceptionally  happy  in  Ms 


MIDSUMMER  45 

new  form.  The  form-master,  whose  name  was 
Cleaver,  was  an  idle  man  with  a  young  wife  and 
a  small  income  of  his  own,  circumstances  that  com- 
bined to  make  him  contented  with  the  conditions 
of  servitude  at  St.  Luke's  which  weighed  so  heavily 
on  the  disappointed  and  underpaid  Selby.  He  was 
also  a  fine  cricketer,  accepting  the  worship  which 
was  the  prerogative  of  an  old  "blue,"  and  convinced 
in  his  own  mind — if  ever  that  kingdom  were  pos- 
sessed by  anything  so  positive  as  a  conviction — > 
that  the  main  business  of  the  summer  term  was 
cricket.  The  atmosphere  of  the  cricket-field,  with 
its  alternations  of  strenuousness  and  summery 
lassitude,  pervaded  his  classroom,  and  the  tradi- 
tions of  that  aristocratic  game,  in  which  nobody 
could  conceivably  behave  in  a  violent  or  unsports- 
manlike manner,  regulated  his  attitude  towards  the 
work  of  his  form. 

Edwin  found  it  fairly  easy  to  keep  his  average 
going  at  the  departments  of  the  game  in  which  Mr. 
Cleaver  was  concerned :  Latin  and  Greek  and  Eng- 
lish. If,  as  occasionally  happened,  he  made  a  cen- 
tury, Cleaver  was  ready  to  congratulate  him  as  a 
sportsman  and  a  brother.  To  be  beaten  by  some 
yorker  of  Tacitus  was  no  crime  if  he  had  played 
with  a  straight  bat  and  didn't  slog.  Even  a  fool 
who  could  keep  his  end  up  had  Mr.  Cleaver's  sym- 
pathy. 

It  was  not  only  in  a  spiritual  atmosphere  of  the 
Lower  Fifth  that  Edwin  found  content.  The  class- 
room which  the  form  inhabited  was  the  most  pleas- 
ant in  the  whole  school,  placed  high  with  a  bow- 
window  overlooking  a  pleasant  lawn  that  a  poplar 


46  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

overshadowed.  Beyond  the  lawn  lay  a  belt  of  dense 
thickets  full  of  singing  birds,  on  the  edge  of  which 
laburnum  and  lilac  were  now  in  flower:  so  that 
when  Edwin's  innings  was  over,  or  Mr.  Cleaver  was 
gently  tossing  up  classical  lobs  to  the  weaker  mem- 
bers of  the  form,  he  could  let  his  eyes  wander  over 
the  warm  air  of  the  lawn  to  plumes  of  purple 
lilac  waving  in  the  summer  breeze,  or  the  tops  of 
the  avenue  of  lime-trees  leading  to  the  chapel  spire. 
Even  in  the  heat  of  the  day  the  Lower  Fifth  class- 
room was  cool  and  airy,  visited  only  by  wandering 
bees  and  scents  of  lime  and  lilac  beckoning  towards 
a  golden  afternoon. 

The  term  was  full  of  lovely  animal  delights ;  the 
luxury  of  flannels  and  soft  felt  hats;  the  warmth 
of  a  caressing  sun ;  the  contrast  of  cool  drinks  and 
water-ices;  the  languors  of  muscular  fatigue;  the 
reviving  ecstasy  of  a  plunge  into  the  green  depths 
of  the  swimming  bath;  the  joy  of  extended  twi- 
lights, and,  in  the  thin  air  of  evening,  a  multitude 
of  sounds,  soothing  because  they  were  so  familiar 
as  to  be  no  more  disturbing  to  consciousness  than 
silence :  boys'  voices  calling  in  the  fields,  the  clear 
click  of  bat  and  ball,  the  stinging  echoes  of  the 
fives-court.  Great  days  .  .  .  great  days  .  .  . 

Edwin  found  himself  becoming  keen  on  cricket — 
not  indeed  from  any  ambitions  towards  excellence, 
though  the  mere  fact  of  sitting  at  Mr.  Cleaver's 
feet  was  an  inspiration,  but  for  the  sheer  joy  of 
tiring  himself  at  the  nets  and  the  peculiar  charm 
of  the  game's  setting  of  sunburn  and  white  flannels 
and  green  fields.  Cricket  was  a  part  of  this  divine 
summer,  and  therefore  to  be  worshipped.  Little 


MIDSUMMER  47 

by  little  as  he  practised  he  found  he  was  beginning 
to  improve,  and  before  the  middle  of  the  term  he 
was  developing  into  a  fair  bowler  of  medium  pace 
and  had  taken  his  own  place  in  the  house  second 
eleven.  It  did  him  good  in  other  ways ;  for  in  this 
capacity  he  found  that  he  was  at  length  accepted 
naturally  and  without  any  exceptional  effort  on  his 
part.  So,  miraculously,  he  seemed  to  have  arrived 
at  a  degree  of  normality.  This,  in  itself,  was  a 
triumph. 

Spending  long  afternoons  with  his  team  in  the 
lower  fields,  he  found  that  he  could  feel  really  at 
home  with  other  "men."  He  discovered  qualities 
in  them  that  he  had  never  guessed  before.  In  the 
cricket  field  even  Douglas  became  tolerable;  no 
longer  a  terrible  and  baleful  influence  with  scowl- 
ing brows  under  a  mop  of  black  hair,  but  just  a 
jolly  good  wicket-keeper.  Edwin  began  to  be  fever- 
ishly interested  in  the  fortunes  of  the  second  eleven : 
kept  their  averages,  produced  an  elaborate  table  of 
league  results,  conceived  a  secondary  but  violent 
interest  in  the  progress  of  his  own  County,  Worces- 
tershire, in  those  days,  thanks  to  the  brilliancy  of 
the  Foster  brothers — slowly  rising  to  fame.  Some- 
times while  he  lay  on  the  grass,  watching  his  own 
side  bat,  he  would  see  the  figure  of  old,  fat  Leem- 
ing  ambling  along  the  path.  He  would  shrink  into 
the  concealment  of  his  uniform  flannel,  being  afraid 
that  his  patron  would  speak  to  him  and  isolate  him 
from  his  pleasant  company.  Leeming  was  not  fond 
of  cricket  and  his  shadow  would  mar  this  particular 
joy.  Only  when  he  had  passed  relief  would  come. 
Great  days  .  .  .  great  days. 


£8          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

m 

In  the  pursuit  of  these  joys  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  Ingleby  forsook  his  friends  the  poets. 
In  the  flush  of  early  June,  before  the  crowding  of 
midsummer's  high  pomps,  there  came  to  him  many 
moments  of  ecstasy.  In  the  spinney  at  the  back 
of  the  head  master's  house  there  was  a  nightingale 
to  which  his  evening  dreams  were  dedicated.  All 
the  twilights  were  full  of  delicious  scents  and 
sounds.  Of  all  other  times  he  remembered  most 
clearly  certain  evenings  when  he  would  walk  all 
alone  up  the  long  slope  of  the  gravel-path  from  the 
chapel,  hearing  the  whizzing  wings  of  the  cock- 
chafers that  made  their  home  in  the  shrubs  on 
either  side.  Sunday  evenings  .  .  .  Sundays  were 
the  most  wonderful  days  of  all ;  not,  indeed,  because 
the  chapel  services  made  any  religious  appeal  to 
him — the  advances  of  Mr.  Leeming  had  scotched 
that  long  ago — but  because  of  the  peculiar  atmos- 
phere of  freedom  which  the  long  day  possessed  and 
which,  somehow,  even  the  Head's  sermons  failed 
to  mar.  He  hated  the  Head's  sermons;  he  hated, 
in  particular,  the  sight  of  Griffin,  who  was  a  use- 
ful member  of  the  choir,  singing,  like  any  golden- 
headed  cherub,  a  solo  in  the  anthem.  But  he  loved 
the  music,  and  particularly  the  psalms,  with  which 
the  daily  matins  and  evensong  made  him  so  familiar 
that  he  couldn't  help  knowing  many  of  them  by 
heart. 

The  chants  to  which  the  psalms  were  sung  at  St. 
Luke's  had  been  specially  composed  for  the  school 
chapel  by  Dr.  Downton,  the  organist,  who  had  fitted 


MIDSUMMER  49 

them  with  modulations  that  were,  at  the  least,  sur- 
prising to  ears  which  could  not  be  happy  or  feel 
secure  far  from  the  present  help  of  tonic  and  domi- 
nant. Most  of  the  congregation  at  St.  Luke's  con- 
sidered that  Sammy's  tunes  were  rotten.  At  first 
they  were  inflicted  upon  the  choir  in  manuscript; 
but  in  Edwin's  second  summer  they  appeared  col- 
lected in  a  slim  gray  volume,  and  Heal,  who  acted 
as  choirmaster,  explained  that  they  were  the  result « 
of  the  most  careful  study  of  the  Hebrew  text,  of 
night-long  ecstasies,  and  the  deep  brooding  of  Dr. 
Downton's  mind.  It  gave  Edwin  a  picture  of  Sam- 
my, with  his  gray,  impassive  face,  weaving  his  tunes 
out  of  the  silence  of  the  night  by  candlelight  in  the 
high  turret-room  which  that  solitary  master  in- 
habited, and  for  this  alone  he  began  to  love  the 
St.  Luke's  Psalter.  It  is  certain,  at  any  rate,  that 
his  early  acquaintance  with  strange  harmonic  ideas 
made  a  great  deal  of  the  most  modern  music  easy 
to  him  in  after  years.  Later,  in  North  Bromwich, 
when  he  became  immersed  in  the  flood  of  Wagner, 
he  often  wondered  whether  Sammy  in  his  lonely 
tower,  had  known  these  wonders,  and  cherished 
them  up  there  all  by  himself.  He  certainly  couldn't 
associate  that  sort  of  music  with  the  nr.ivetes  of  Mr. 
Heal's  flute.  And  yet,  you  never  can  tell.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Heal  knew  his  Hardy.  .  .  . 

Then  there  were  Sunday  walks  with  Widdup 
over  the  downs  under  a  grilling  sun,  and  through 
the  woods  of  York  Park,  where  Griffin  and  Doug- 
las, poaching,  had  encountered  keepers;  but  the 
glare  and  dryness  of  a  chalk  country  in  summer 
does  not  invite  exercise,  and  the  most  precious 


50  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

hours  of  all  were  spent  on  the  sloping  banks  be- 
tween the  Grand  Entrance  and  the  chapel.  Here, 
early  on  a  Sunday  morning,  Edwin  and  Widdup 
would  carry  out  an  armful  of  rugs  and  cushions: 
and  there  all  day  they  would  lie  in  the  shade  of  the 
limes,  reading,  writing  letters  (Ingleby  always  had 
a  letter  from  his  mother  to  answer  on  Sundays), 
watching  the  restless  flight  of  little  copper  butter- 
flies, seeing  the  hot  sky  deepen  to  an  almost  south- 
ern blue  behind  the  pointed  gables  of  the  school. 
Against  such  skies  the  red  brick  of  St.  Luke's  be- 
came amazingly  beautiful.  It  seemed  to  Edwin  that 
in  his  home,  on  the  edge  of  the  black  country,  the 
sky  was  never  so  clear  and  deep.  Lying  there  he 
would  read  the  books  that  he  had  smuggled  out  of 
the  library  .  .  .  poetry  ...  a  great  deal  of  it. 
Novels  ...  he  read,  and  he  always  remembered 
reading,  Poe's  Tales  of  Mystery  and  Imagination: 
"The  Murder  in  the  Hue  Morgue,"  "The  Pit  and  the 
Pendulum,"  "The  Masque  of  the  Ked  Death."  Such 
titles!  There  seemed  to  be  no  end  to  the  leisure 
of  those  days. 

With  the  middle  of  the  term  came  the  Race  Meet- 
ing on  the  Downs.  During  the  whole  of  Race  Week 
the  college  bounds  were  tightened,  so  that  no  boy 
dared  show  his  face  outside  the  iron  gates.  Within 
the  short  memory  of  the  school,  a  prefect — no  less! 
— had  been  expelled,  confronting  his  own  house- 
master on  the  edge  of  Tattersall's  ring. 

On  Wednesday  of  the  week  the  race  for  the  Six 
Thousand  Guineas,  the  greatest  of  the  classics,  was 
to  be  run,  St.  Luke's  within  its  closed  gates  buzzed 
like  a  hive.  In  every  house  and  every  form  there 


MIDSUMMER  51 

were  sweepstakes.  Griffin  made  a  book ;  boasted  in 
Hall  that  he  meant  to  see  the  "Guineas"  run  or  die. 
Ingleby  very  nearly  admired  him  for  his  courage. 
The  great  day  came.  All  morning  from  the  open 
windows  of  the  Lower  Fifth  classroom  he  could 
hear  the  rumble  of  loaded  brakes  climbing  the 
Downs  road.  In  those  days  there  were  no  motors, 
but  white  dust,  up-churned  by  many  hundreds  of 
wheels,  filled  the  air  and  drifted  in  clouds  into  the 
college  quad.  From  a  high  wall  at  the  back  of  the 
swimming-bath  they  could  see  the  road  itself  and 
the  unceasing,  hot  procession  moving  upwards; 
brakes  full  of  men  who  carried  beer-bottles ;  bookies 
in  white  top-hats;  costers  with  buttons  as  big  as 
half-crowns  driving  carts  drawn  by  little  donkeys 
whose  thick  coats  were  matted  with  sweat;  gipsies 
out  to  prey  upon  the  rest  of  mankind ;  smart  gentle- 
men in  dog-skin  gloves  driving  tandem ;  regimental 
drags.  All  the  road  was  full  of  dust  and  torn  paper 
and  the  odour  of  beer  and  sweat,  and  every  member 
of  the  crowd  looked  anxiously  forward,  as  though 
he  feared  he  would  be  too  late  for  the  "Guineas," 
toward  the  summit  of  the  Downs  where  the  grand 
stand,  like  a  magnificent  paper-rack,  stood  up  white 
against  the  sky.  Down  in  the  playing-fields  that 
afternoon  nobody  thought  much  of  cricket.  For  all 
the  locked  iron  gates,  the  eager  consciousness  of 
the  crowd  on  the  Downs  had  invaded  St.  Luke's. 
Ingleby  was  scoring  for  his  own  side's  innings. 
Douglas,  who  was  sitting  astride  of  a  bat,  kept  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  airy  summit  of  the  grand  stand, 
now  fringed  with  the  black  bodies  of  a  thousand 
spectators.  He  pulled  out  his  watch. 


52  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

'      "They're  off!"  he  said.     "My  God,  don't  I  envy 
old  Griff!" 

Ingleby  forgot  his  scoring.  He,  too,  was  won- 
dering what  had  happened.  He  could  imagine  it 
easily,  for  several  times  on  the  Downs  he  had 
crossed  the  tan  gallops  on  which,  it  was  said,  horses 
from  the  royal  racing  stables  were  trained,  and  seen 
incredibly  slender  creatures,  lithe  as  greyhounds, 
thundering  neck  and  neck,  over  the  sprinkled  bark. 
He  could  think  of  nothing  swifter  or  more  exciting 
on  earth.  The  game  stopped.  All  the  players  were 
looking  at  the  grand  stand,  as  though  their  eyes 
could  tell  them  which  horse  had  won.  Two  min- 
utes. Three.  From  the  top  of  the  Downs  a  great 
roar  came  down  to  them.  Some  monstrous  beast, 
no  congregation  of  men,  was  roaring  there.  The 
black  fringe  on  the  grand  stand  became  animated 
by  waving  arms  and  hats  and  sticks.  A  cloud  of 
tinier  specks  detached  themselves.  These  were  the 
carrier  pigeons ;  and  in  a  very  little  time  they  were 
flying  high  above  the  playing-fields,  seeing,  no 
doubt,  the  black  mass  of  London  outstretched  so 
many  miles  away. 

"God  ...  I  wish  I  could  shoot  one,"  said  Doug- 
las. "I  never  heard  such  a  row  as  they  made  up 
there.  Ingleby,  I'll  lay  you  two  to  one  the  Prince's 
horse  has  won." 

That  evening  witnessed  the  canonisation  of 
Griffin.  Veritably  he  had  seen  the  Guineas.  A 
crowd  of  admirers  listened  to  his  story  between 
preps  in  the  house  classroom.  His  manner  was  in- 
dolent and  boastful.  This  was  to  be  no  more  than 
the  first  of  many  exploits.  On  Friday — Ladies'  Day 


MIDSUMMER  53 

« — the  race  for  the  Birches  would  be  run.  He  had 
put  the  money  he  had  won  over  the  Guineas  on  a 
horse  called  Airs  and  Graces,  and  was  going  to  see 
her  bring  his  money  home. 

Ingleby  had  never  heard  the  name  of  this  horse 
before,  but  when  the  house  sweepstakes  for  the 
Birches  was  drawn  he  found  that  Airs  and  Graces 
had  fallen  to  him.  Griffin,  who  evidently  consid- 
ered that  this  animal's  destinies  were  in  his  keep- 
ing, offered  him  a  pound  for  his  ticket.  Ingleby 
wasn't  having  any.  Douglas,  called  in  to  give  an 
opinion  on  the  damnableness  of  that  skunk  Ingle- 
by's  sticking  to  a  sweepstake  ticket  for  which  he 
had  been  given  a  fair  offer,  agreed  it  was  a  bloody 
shame  that  a  man  like  that  should  have  drawn  any- 
thing but  a  blank.  What  did  he  know  about  rac- 
ing? Racing  was  a  pastime  of  gentlemen  in  which 
he  couldn't  obviously  have  any  interest.  Did  Ingle- 
by understand  that  Griffin  was  going  to  see  the  race 
itself,  a  thing  that  he  would  never  have  the  guts 
to  do  in  all  his  life? 

A  couple  of  years  before  Ingleby  would  not  have 
known  how  to  meet  the  coalition ;  it  is  possible,  even, 
that  he  would  have  given  up  his  ticket,  and  im- 
probable that  he  would  have  received  the  pound 
that  Griffin  offered.  By  this  time  he  had  learnt 
that  no  answer  at  all  was  better  than  the  softest; 
that  when  Griffin  and  Douglas  started  that  sort  of 
game  the  best  thing  was  to  keep  his  temper  and 
clear  out  as  quickly  as  possible.  On  this  occasion 
the  chapel  bell  saved  him.  All  through  the  service 
that  evening  he  was  pondering  on  Griffin's  words, 
trying,  rather  obstinately,  to  convince  himself  that 


154  }THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

they  weren't  true;  that  he  wasn't  the  skunk  they 
had  agreed  to  call  him;  that  he  was  sufficiently 
gentle  in  birth  to  have  an  interest  in  what  the 
newspapers  called  "the  sport  of  kings,"  that,  at  a 
pinch,  he  might  summon  up  sufficient  "guts"  to 
emulate  the  boldness  of  such  a  daring  customer  as 
Griffin.  Perhaps  it  was  all  too  horribly  true.  .  .  . 

He  couldn't  accept  it.  It  was  inconceivable  that 
all  the  attributes  of  knightly  courage  should  be 
vested  in  people  like  Griffin;  and  yet  he  couldn't 
be  certain  that  he  wasn't  deceiving  himself.  It  was 
so  easy  to  imagine  oneself  brave  .  .  .  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world.  "That's  the  worst  of  me,"  he 
said  to  himself,  "I  can  imagine  anything.  I  could 
imagine  myself  hiring  a  coach  and  wearing  a  white 
top-hat  and  asking  old  fat  Leeming  to  come  to  the 
Birches  with  me  on  Friday.  I'm  all  imagination 
and  silly  rot  of  that  kind;  but  when  it  comes  to 
the  point  I'm  no  damned  good  at  all." 

It  wasn't  the  first  time  that  he  had  realised  de- 
fects of  this  kind.  Term  after  term  he  had  been 
reproaching  himself  for  the  lack  of  moral  or  phys- 
ical courage. 

There  was  only  one  way  out  of  it :  to  prove  that 
he  was  capable  of  the  things  which  he  feared  by 
doing  them.  In  this  way  he  had  driven  himself  to 
batter  his  hands  to  pulp  by  playing  fives  without 
gloves;  for  this  he  had  taken  a  dive  into  the  deep 
end  of  the  swimming-bath  for  the  sole  reason  that 
he  found  it  impossible  to  float  in  the  shallow  water 
and  had  determined  to  swim ;  for  this  he  had  forced 
himself  to  spend  long  hours,  or  to  waste  long  hours, 
over  Geometry,  the  subject  that  he  hated  most 


MIDSUMMER  55 

Now,  in  the  same  way,  and  wholly  for  his  own  sat- 
isfaction, he  determined  to  go  to  the  Birches. 

That  night,  walking  up  and  down  the  Quad,  he 
opened  the  subject  to  Widdup.  He  said, — 

"Do  you  know  I  drew  Airs  and  Graces  in  the 
house  sweep?  Griffin  offered  me  a  quid  for  the 
ticket." 

"I  should  jolly  well  let  him  have  it,"  said  Widdup, 
explaining  the  mathematical  side  of  the  question. 
"You  see,  you've  won  a  twenty  to  one  chance  al- 
ready. The  chances  against  the  horse  winning  are 
.  .  .  well  you  can  work  it  out  easily.  I'll  do  it  for 
you  in  second  prep.  Besides,  old  Griff  has  a  lot  GI 
money  on  the  horse  and  he's  going  to  see  the  race 
run." 

"Well,  so  am  I,"  said  Ingleby.  Widdup  laughed, 
and  that  annoyed  him. 

"What  do  you  think  of  it?" 

"I  think  you're  a  damned  fool,"  said  Widdup. 

Ingleby  left  it  at  that.  Perhaps  Widdup  was 
right.  But  why  in  the  world  should  the  same  thing 
count  for  heroism  in  the  case  of  Griffin  and  folly 
in  his  own?  He  distrusted  the  mathematical 
Widdup's  sense  of  proportion.  In  any  case  he  had 
to  go  through  with  it.  If  he  didn't,  no  subsequent 
heroism  could  ever  persuade  him  that  he  wasn't  a 
coward  and  worthy  of  every  epithet  with  which 
Griffin  had  loaded  him.  It  was  in  the  same  spirit, 
lie  imagined,  that  knights  in  the  ages  of  chivalry 
had  set  themselves  to  perform  extravagant  tasks, 
that  saints  had  undergone  monstrous  privations; 
just  to  convince  themselves  that  they  weren't  as 
deficient  in  "guts"  as  they  feared. 


56          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

The  business  came  more  easily  than  he  had  ex- 
pected when  first  he  tied  himself  to  his  resolve. 
Friday  at  St.  Luke's  was  a  "fag-day."  On  Friday 
afternoon,  that  is  to  say,  there  were  no  organised 
games.  The  afternoon  prep  started  at  half-past 
three,  and  afternoon  school  at  four-fifteen.  The 
great  race,  he  learned,  was  to  be  run  at  three 
o'clock;  and  this  would  give  him  time  to  miss  the 
hour  of  prep  which  was  not  supervised  and  to  be 
ready  for  an  innings  of  Greek  with  Cleaver.  An 
easy  game,  Greek.  .  .  .  For  once  in  a  way  he  was 
prepared  to  slog  like  blazes. 

Up  to  the  last  moment  Widdup  refused  to  think 
that  he  would  go  through  with  it.  He  didn't  be- 
lieve, indeed,  until  he  saw  Edwin  climb  on  to  the 
top  of  the  wooden  fence  in  the  nightingale's  spinney 
at  the  back  of  the  Head's  house  and  drop  over  into 
the  road. 

"Now,  I  should  think  you've  had  enough  of  it," 
said  Widdup.  "If  the  old  man  came  along  and 
saw  you  there,  you'd  be  bunked  to-morrow.  Come 
along.  .  .  ." 

"I'll  be  back  just  after  three,"  said  Edwin.  "You'll 
be  here  to  give  me  a  hand  over?" 

"All  right,"  said  Widdup.  "You  are  a  bloody 
fool,  you  know." 


CHAPTER  Y 

AIRS  AND  GRACES 

HE  didn't  need  telling  that.  With  every  step 
the  conviction  was  borne  in  on  him,  and  when 
he  came  to  the  end  of  the  wooden  palings  that 
marked  the  school  boundary  he  was  very  near  to 
giving  up  his  enterprise.  He  could  easily,  so  easily, 
slip  over  the  hedge  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  road 
and  wait  there  until  the  race  was  over  and  the 
bookies'  messenger-boys  came  racing  down  the  hill 
on  their  bicycles,  bells  tingling  all  the  way;  and 
then  he  could  meet  Widdup  at  the  appointed  place 
and  say  that  he  had  seen  the  race.  By  that  time 
rumour  would  have  told  him  the  winner's  name. 
But  that  wouldn't  do.  Not  that  he  cared  two* 
pence-halfpenny  whether  he  told  the  truth  or  a  lie 
to  Widdup,  but  because  he  would  feel  such  a 
wretched  coward  in  his  own  mind.  He  had  got  to 
prove  to  himself  that  he  possessed  the  moral  courage 
which  he  doubted.  It  was  only  the  existence  of 
the  very  real  danger — and  he  envisaged  not  only 
his  own  expulsion,  but  harrowing  scenes  of  remorse 
and  distress  at  home — that  made  the  thing  a  fair 
test.  He  had  to  go  through  with  it. 

Beyond  the  line  of  fencing,  even  standing  in  mid- 
stream of  that  determined  crowd,  he  felt  himself 
curiously  unprotected.  He  did  a  curious  thing.  He 

57 


58          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

turned  his  college  cap,  with  its  circular  stripes 
of  green,  inside  out,  presenting  to  the  world  a  dirty 
brown  lining.  This  wasn't  enough  for  him :  he  also 
turned  up  the  collar  of  his  Eton  coat.  But  the 
crowd  was  thinking  of  one  thing  only  and  none 
seemed  to  notice  him.  They  noticed  nothing.  Even 
the  sellers  of  the  race  cards  and  the  tawny  gipsies 
who  cried  for  a  piece  of  silver  to  cross  their  palms, 
and  promised  good  luck,  were  unheeded.  Edwin 
concealed  himself,  or  imagined  some  measure  of 
concealment,  in  an  eddy  of  dust  between  a  heavy 
wagonette,  crammed  with  men  who  looked  like  li- 
censed victuallers,  and  a  coster's  donkey  cart.  He 
found  that  by  holding  on  to  the  step  of  the  wagon- 
ette he  felt  safer.  It  was  reassuring  to  hold  some- 
thing. What  a  rotten  coward  he  was ! 

At  last  one  of  the  men  in  the  last  seat  of  the 
wagonette  who  had  been  rolling  about  with  his  eyes 
closed,  opened  them  and  looked  at  Edwin.  They 
were  curiously  watery  eyes,  and  his  mouth  was  all 
over  the  shop.  When  he  had  dreamily  considered 
the  phenomenon  of  Edwin  for  a  little  while  he  ad- 
dressed him, — 

"You  look  ?ot,  young  man." 

It  was  hot,  Edwin  panted. 

"Bloody  'ot,"  said  the  man  in  the  wagonette.  As 
an  afterthought  he  took  a  bottle  of  beer,  about  a 
quarter  full,  from  his  pocket.  The  cork  came  out 
with  a  pop.  "Gas,"  said  the  fat  man,  and  chuckled. 
"Gas  .  .  .  eh?"  He  took  a  swig,  and  with  the  froth 
fringing  his  moustache,  offered  the  bottle  to  Edwin. 
Edwin  shook  his  head. 

"You  won't?"  said  the  fat  man.    "You're  workin' 


AIRS  AND  GRACES  59 

'arder  than  I  am.  Oh,  well,  if  'e  won't,"  he  con- 
tinued dreamily,  and  finished  the  bottle.  Then  he 
pitched  it  over  the  hedge. 

The  dust  was  terrible.  On  either  side  of  the  track 
the  hedges  and  banks  were  as  white  as  the  road. 
The  horses  pulled  well,  and  even  hanging  on  the 
step  Edwin  found  it  difficult  to  keep  up  with  them. 
At  the  crest  of  the  hill  the  driver  whipped  them 
into  a  trot.  Edwin  let  go  the  step  and  was  cursed 
fluently  by  the  coster  for  standing  in  the  way  of  his 
donkey-cart.  His  friend  waved  him  good-bye.  He 
found  himself  caught  up  in  a  stream  of  other  walk- 
ers, hurrying  in  a  bee-line  for  the  grand  stand,  now 
distantly  visible  with  the  royal  standard  drooping 
above  it.  Behind  him  and  in  front  the  black  snake 
of  that  procession  stretched,  sliding,  literally,  over 
the  shiny  convolutions  of  the  Down  that  the  feet 
of  the  foremost  had  polished,  and  moving  in  a  sort 
of  vapour  of  its  own,  compact  of  beer  and  strong 
tobacco  and  intolerable  human  odours.  From  the 
crown  of  the  Downs  Edwin  looked  back  at  the  play- 
ing-fields, the  tiny  white  figures  at  the  nets  and  in 
the  fives-court  that  sometimes  stopped  in  their  play 
to  watch  the  black  serpent  in  whose  belly  he  now 
moved.  They  seemed  very  near — far  too  near  to 
be  comfortable ;  and  even  though  he  knew  that  no- 
body down  there  could  possibly  see  him,  he  felt 
happier  when  a  billow  of  the  Down  hid  the  plain 
from  sight. 

It  was  only  when  he  reached  the  grand  stand, 
losing  himself  in  the  thick  of  the  crowd  that  clus- 
tered about  it,  that  he  began  to  feel  safe.  He  looked 
at  his  watch  and  found  that  he  had  a  quarter  of 


60  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN, 

an  hour  to  spare.  A  little  old  man  in  seedy  black 
clothes  grabbed  his  elbow  fiercely.  "Young  sir, 
young  sir,"  he  said,  "take  my  advice  .  .  .  gratis; 
free;  for  nothing."  He  laughed,  and  Edwin  saw 
gray  bristles  stretched  on  his  underlip.  "Take  my 
advice.  Never  expose  your  watch  at  a  race-meeting. 
Myself  .  .  .  I've  learnt  it  from  long  experience, 
my  own  and  my  friends'.  .  .  .  Never  even  take  a 
watch  when  I  go  racing.  No,  I  leave  it  at  home. 
A  beautiful  half -hunter  by  Benson  of  Ludgate  Hill, 
with  enamelled  face.  Yes.  .  .  .  You  take  my  ad- 
vice. A  thing  to  always  remember.  Yes.  .  .  ." 

Edwin  seriously  thanked  him.  A  roar  went  up 
from  the  crowd.  "The  Prince.  The  Prince  has  en- 
tered the  Royal  Box,"  said  the  old  man.  "God  bless 
him."  He  raised  a  dusty  top-hat,  An  extraordi- 
nary gesture  for  this  wrinkled,  gnomish  creature. 
"Yes,"  he  mumbled;  "a  handsome  time-piece.  .  .  . 
Benson  of  Ludgate  Hill.  A  very  prominent  firm. 
We  shall  see  nothing  here.  You  follow  me." 

Edwin  followed.  More  beer,  more  tobacco,  more 
of  the  curious  composite  smell,  more  positively  veg- 
etable than  human,  that  he  had  begun  to  associate 
with  trampled  pieces  of  paper,  probably  the  debris 
of  bags  that  had  once  held  fruit  of  some  kind.  The 
little  man  pushed  his  way  deftly  through  the  crowd. 
He  was  so  small  and  inoffensive  that  nobody  seemed 
to  notice  him;  and  indeed  the  leading  character- 
istics of  this  crowd's  vast  consciousness  seemed  to 
be  good  humour.  The  bookies  in  their  white  hats, 
the  many-buttoned  costers,  the  sweating  men  in 
black  coats,  the  very  waiters  in  the  refreshment 
tents,  staggering  under  leaning  towers  of  beef' 


AIRS  AND  GRACES  61 

plates,  seemed  determined  to  enjoy  themselves  in 
spite  of  the  heat  and  the  smell  of  their  neighbours 
Tinder  the  white-hot  sky. 

Edwin,  too,  forgot  his  anxieties.  The  vastnesa 
of  the  crowd  subtly  shielded  him.  He  felt  newly 
secure,  and  his  spirit  was  caught  up  into  its  ex- 
citement and  good  humour.  He  even  turned  down 
his  collar.  And  all  the  time  his  mind  exulted  in  a 
queer  sense  of  clarity,  an  intoxication  due,  per- 
haps, to  his  successful  daring.  In  this  state  he 
found  all  his  surroundings  vivid  and  amusing;  all 
colours  and  sounds  came  to  him  with  a  heightened 
brilliancy.  He  smiled,  and  suddenly  found  that  a 
young  gipsy  woman  with  her  head  in  a  bright 
handkerchief  was  smiling  back  at  him.  He  thought 
it  was  jolly  that  people  should  smile  like  that.  He 
thought  what  jolly  good  luck  it  was  meeting  his 
guide,  the  shiny  shoulders  of  whose  frock  coat  he 
saw  in  front  of  him.  His  quick  mind  had  placed 
the  little  man  already:  a  solicitor's  clerk  in  some 
ancient  worm-eaten  Inn  of  Court,  a  relic  of  the 
dark,  lamp-litten  London  of  Dickens :  a  city  of  yel- 
low fog  and  cobbled  pavements  shining  in  the  rain : 
of  dusty,  cobwebbed  law-stationers'  windows  and 
cosy  parlours  behind  them  where  kettles  were  sing- 
ing on  the  hob  of  a  toasting  fire,  and  punch  was 
mixed  at  night. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  have  met  no  more 
suitable  person  than  his  friend;  for  really  all  this 
racing  crowd  were  making  a  sort  of  Cockney  holi- 
day of  the  kind  that  the  greatest  Victorian  loved 
most  dearly.  He  began  to  find  words  for  it  all. 
He  must  find  words  for  it,  for  it  would  be  such  fun 


62          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

writing  to  his  mother  about  it.  If  he  dared.  .  .  . 
It  would  be  time  enough  to  write  a  letter  about  it 
when  the  business  was  finished  without  disaster. 
There  was  always  the  possibility  that  he  would  be 
found  out  and  expelled.  Even  if  that  should  happen, 
he  thought,  he  would  like  to  tell  his  mother.  .  .  . 

Together  they  passed  the  level  of  the  grand  stand. 
This  huge  erection  of  white-painted  wood  provided 
the  only  constant  landmark,  for  Edwin  was  not 
tall  enough  to  see  above  the  shoulders  of  the  adult 
crowd  in  which  he  was  moving.  Now  they  had  left 
the  grand  stand  behind  it  seemed  that  they  must 
surely  be  crossing  the  course.  And  then  a  bell 
clanged  and  the  crowd  parted  like  a  great  wave  of 
the  Bed  Sea  in  pictures  of  the  Exodus.  Edwin 
found  himself  clinging  to  the  coat-tails  of  his  friend, 
and  the  little  man,  in  turn,  hanging  on,  as  if  for 
his  life,  to  a  whitewashed  post  from  which  the  next 
wave  would  have  sucked  him  back.  The  crowd 
swayed  gently,  settling  down  and  leaving  them 
stranded  upon  the  very  edge  of  the  course.  "That's 
a  trick  worth  knowing,"  said  Edwin's  friend. 

Opposite  them  the  stands,  well  known  to  him  on 
Sunday  walks  as  a  vast  skeletal  erection,  stood 
clothed  in  flesh  and  blood :  tier  upon  tier  of  human 
faces  packed  one  above  the  other  looked  down  on 
him.  Edwin  had  never  before  realised  how  pale 
the  faces  of  men  and  women  were.  From  the  midst 
of  them  there  rose  a  ceaseless  murmur  of  human 
speech,  shrilling  occasionally  like  the  voices  of  star- 
lings when  they  whirl  above  an  autumn  reed  bed, 
and  then,  as  suddenly,  still.  For  one  extraordinary; 


AIRS  AND  GRACES  63, 

moment  they  were  nearly  silent.  "They're  off !"  said 
the  little  man.  .  .  . 

Again  the  murmur  of  the  stands  arose.  A  bookie 
just  behind  them  was  doing  his  best  to  get  in  a 
last  few  bets,  entreating,  proclaiming  passionately 
the  virtues  of  "the  old  firm."  His  red  face  lifted 
above  the  crowd,  and  while  he  shouted  saliva  drib- 
bled from  his  mouth.  A  curious  roaring  sound 
came  from  the  other  side  of  the  horse-shoe  course 
a  mile  or  more  away.  He  stopped  with  his  mouth 
open  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence.  Something  had 
happened  over  there.  Everybody,  even  those  who 
couldn't  see  anything,  turned  in  the  direction  from 
which  the  sound  came.  Edwin  turned  with  them. 
He  couldn't  imagine  why.  And  when  he  turned  his 
eyes  gazed  straight  into  those  of  Miss  Denning,  the 
matron  of  the  College  Sanatorium,  marvellously 
dressed  for  the  occasion  and  leaning  upon  the  inno- 
cent arm  of  Mr.  Heal.  Thank  God,  Mr.  Heal  was 
short-sighted!  Edwin  felt  himself  blushing.  He 
knew  for  certain  that  she  had  seen  and  recognised 
him;  for  his  sick  headaches  had  often  taken  him 
to  the  Sanatorium  and  he  had  always  been  rather 
a  favourite  of  hers.  She  stared  straight  at  him  and 
her  eyes  never  wavered.  Obviously  the  game  was 
up.  He  fancied  that  her  lips  smiled  faintly.  Never 
was  a  smile  more  sinister. 

Edwin  had  an  impulse  to  bolt  .  .  .  simply  to 
turn  tail  and  run  at  his  hardest  straight  back  to 
the  college.  He  couldn't  do  that.  Between  him 
and  escape,  an  impassable  river,  lay  the  parabola 
of  yellow  grass  over  which  the  Birches  was  even 
now  being  run.  Feeling  almost  physically  sick,  he 


64  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

slipped  round  to  the  other  side  of  his  companion. 
He  wished  that  gnomish  creature  had  been  bigger. 
"They're  at  the  corner  ...  if  you  lean  out  you 
can  see  ...  look,  they're  coming  into  the  straight 
.  .  .  Airs  and  Graces  leading.  Down  they  come. 
LThe  finest  sight  in  the  civilised  world." 

Edwin  didn't  see  them.  He  saw  nothing  but  the 
phantom  of  Miss  Denning's  eyes,  her  faint  and 
curiously  sinister  smile.  He  wished  to  goodness 
the  race  were  over.  Now  everybody  was  shouting. 
The  stands  rose  with  a  growl  like  great  beasts  heav- 
ing in  the  air.  Something  incredibly  swift  and 
strepitant  passed  him  in  a  whirl  of  wind  and  dust. 
The  crowd  about  him  and  the  heaving  stands  broke 
into  an  inhuman  roar.  The  little  old  man  beside 
Mm  was  jumping  up  and  down,  throwing  his  top- 
hat  into  the  air  and  catching  it  again.  The  whole 
world  had  gone  shouting  and  laughing  mad.  Edwin 
heard  on  a  hundred  lips  the  name  of  Airs  and 
Graces.  It  meant  nothing  to  him.  Now  he  could 
only  think  of  escape ;  and  as  the  crowd  bulged  and 
burst  once  more  over  the  course  he  made  a  dash 
for  the  other  side. 

Mounted  police  were  pressing  back  the  tide ;  but 
Edwin  was  small,  and  quick  enough  to  get  over. 
He  pushed  and  wriggled  his  way  through  masses 
to  which  there  seemed  to  be  no  end.  Only  in  the 
rear  of  the  stands  the  density  of  the  crowd  thinned. 
Then  he  broke  into  a  run  and  though  he  was  soaked 
with  sweat  and  his  head  was  aching  fiercely,  he 
did  not  stop  running  until  a  billow  of  the  Down 
had  hidden  the  stands  from  sight. 

In  a  little  hollow  littered  with  tins  and  other 


AIRS  AND  GRACES  65 

debris,  and  choked  with  nettles  and  some  other  hot- 
smelling  herb,  he  lay,  recovering  his  breath,  and, 
for  the  first  time,  thinking,  beside  a  diminished  dew- 
pond  of  dirty  water.  He  was  miserable.  Fate  now 
brooded  over  him  as  heavily  as  the  white-hot  sky, 
and  he  couldn't,  for  the  life  of  him,  imagine  why. 
It  was  ridiculous,  in  any  case,  that  the  mere  sight 
of  a  woman's  eyes  should  have  worked  so  extraor- 
dinary a  miracle.  Yet  this  was  no  less  than  the 
truth.  Suddenly,  without  a  shadow  of  warning,  all 
the  happiness  and  light  and  colour  had  gone  out  of 
his  adventure.  That  which  had  been,  at  least,  mag- 
nificent, had  now  become  childish  or  nearly  silly. 
Reflecting,  he  couldn't  be  satisfied  that  anything 
was  changed.  Nothing  had  really  changed  except 
himself;  and  he  didn't  want  to  admit  that  he  had 
changed  either.  No,  he  hadn't  changed.  Only  his 
mind  was  just  like  the  dewpond  at  his  feet  in  which 
the  burning  sky  was  mirrored.  Some  days  it  would 
be  blue  and  white  and  others  black  with  thunder. 
But  the  pool  would  be  just  the  same.  "I  oughtn't 
to  be  more  miserable  now  than  I  was  when  I  came 
up  here;  and  then,  apart  from  being  a  bit  funky, 
I  felt  ripping."  None  of  these  sober  reflections  re- 
lieved him.  All  the  rest  of  the  way  back  he  felt 
hunted  and  miserable,  and  something  very  near  to 
panic  seized  him  at  the  point  when  he  reached  the 
college  palings. 

At  the  corner,  looking  horribly  scared,  Widdup 
was  waiting. 

"Thank  goodness  you've  come,"  he  said.  Then 
he  suddenly  went  white. 

"What's  the  matter?"  cried  Edwin. 


66          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Oh,  Lord,  it's  the  Head." 

The  voice  of  the  head-master  came  next, — • 

"Hallo,  what  are  you  doing  here?  Let  me  see — * 
Widdup,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

A  mortar-board  topped  the  palings. 

"Ingleby— What's  this?  What's  this?  What  are 
you  doing  there?" 

A  moment  of  brilliant  inspiration. 

"Widdup  and  I  were  fooling,  sir,  and  he  chucked 
my  cap  over  the  fence.  May  I  get  it,  sir?" 

"Serious — very  serious,"  muttered  the  Head. 
"The  letter  of  the  law.  Eace-week.  You're  out  of 
bounds,  you  know — technically  out  of  bounds.  Boys 
have  been  expelled  for  less.  Yes,  expelled.  Ruin 
your  whole  career." 

Edwin  saw  that  he  was  in  a  good  humour;  saw, 
in  the  same  flash,  the  too-literal  Widdup,  white  with 
fear. 

"I'm  sorry,  sir,"  he  said  .  .  .  "awfully  sorry." 

"Mph.  .  .  .  What  were  you  two  doing  here?" 

"I  wanted  to  get  some  poplar  leaves  for  my  puss- 
moth  caterpillars."  Silence — then,  rather  lamely, — • 

"They're  in  the  fourth  stage,  sir." 

"Are  they?"  The  Head  smiled,  possibly  because 
he  approved  of  this  fervent  manifestation  of  what 
the  head-masters'  conference  called  "nature  study," 
possibly  at  Edwin's  sudden  revelation  of  schoolboy 
psychology.  Decidedly  he  approved  of  the  puss- 
moths.  He  had  been  reading  Fabre  aloud  to  his 
wife.  Fabre,  too,  was  a  schoolmaster,  poor  devil! 
He  did  not  speak  his  thoughts :  schoolmasters  never 
can.  He  said, — 


AIRS  AND  GRACES  67 

"Let  me  see,  Ingleby,  you're  in  the  Lower  Fifth?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"I  must  speak  to  Mr.  Cleaver.  .  .  ."  He  didn't 
say  what  he  must  speak  about.  "All  right — get 
along  with  you."  He  left  them,  walking  away  with 
his  hands  joined  behind  his  back  supporting  an  im- 
mense flounce  of  black  silk  gown.  Edwin  scrambled 
over  the  fence ;  his  hands,  as  they  clutched  the  top 
of  it,  were  trembling  violently. 

"Well,  you  are  a  prize  liar,"  said  Widdup,  "and 
the  old  man  believed  every  word  of  it." 

"I  know,"  said  Edwin.  "That's  the  rotten  part 
of  it.  .  .  ." 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  .  .  ."  He  knew  perfectly 
well  what  he  meant. 

"Who  won?" 

"Airs  and  Graces." 

"Then  you've  won  the  sweep." 

"Yes." 

Ten  minutes  later  he  was  back  in  Mr.  Cleaver's 
classroom  trying  to  make  himself  so  inconspicuous 
that  he  wouldn't  be  called  upon  to  make  an  exhibi- 
tion of  himself,  and,  as  luck  would  have  it,  nothing 
of  any  difficulty  came  his  way  to  drag  him  from 
his  comfortable  obscurity.  Even  though  the  in- 
tense excitement  of  his  adventure  had  now  faded, 
the  atmosphere  of  that  high  room  had  changed.  He 
felt  that  he  didn't  somehow  belong  to  it ;  or,  rather, 
that  he  had  left  something  behind.  All  through 
that  drowsy  hour  some  part  of  him  was  still  being 
hurried  over  the  hot  downs,  swept  along  in  the 
sweating  crowds  of  the  racecourse,  and  this  cir- 


68  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

cumstance  made  his  present  life  strangely  unreal, 
as  though  he  were  a  changeling  with  whom  it  had 
nothing  in  common.  Gradually,  very  gradually,  the 
old  conditions  reasserted  themselves,  but  it  was 
not  until  the  insistent  discipline  of  the  evening  ser- 
vice in  chapel  had  dragged  him  back  into  normal- 
ity that  his  adventure  and  the  influence  of  the 
strange  people  with  whom  he  had  rubbed  shoulders 
began  to  fade.  Widdup,  with  his  unblushing  admi- 
ration, helped.  There  was  no  shutting  him  up. 

"Well,  you  have  a  nerve,"  he  said.  "I  wonder 
what  you'll  do  next.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  stow  it,"  said  Edwin.  "I've  finished  with 
that  sort  of  thing.  I'm  not  cut  out  for  a  blood." 

"I  can't  think  how  you  did  it." 

"Neither  can  I.  It  was  damned  silly  of  me.  I 
just  wanted  to  satisfy  myself  that  .  .  .  that  I  had 
some  guts,  you  know.  I  didn't  really  care  what 
you  chaps  thought  about  it.  It  was  sort  of  pri- 
vate. ." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THUNDER  WEATHER 


THAT  night  a  thrilled  but  incredulous  dormi- 
tory discussed  the  exploit  of  Ingleby.  With- 
out pretending  to  have  approached  the  dizzy 
achievements  of  Griffin,  Edwin  perceived  that  in 
addition  to  reassuring  himself  he  had  managed  to 
atone  for  a  little  of  his  former  reputation.  He 
found  himself  treated  with  something  that  was 
almost  respect,  partly  for  the  daring  of  the  whole 
expedition,  but  even  more  for  the  crowning  achieve- 
ment of  his  inspired  lie. 

"I  wish  you  hadn't  told  them  that,"  he  said  to 
Widdup. 

"Why  not?"  said  Widdup.  "That  was  the  best 
part  of  it." 

"I  don't  think  so.  I  don't  mind  telling  a  lie,  but 
it's  rotten  if  the  chap  you  tell  it  to  believes  you." 

"Get  out,"  said  Widdup.  "If  you  want  to  know 
the  truth  it's  only  another  example  of  your  rotten 
cockiness." 

Why?  Why?  Why?  ...  He  couldn't  under- 
stand it.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  most  natural 
decent  things  in  the  world  were  all  labelled  as  ab- 
normalities. Even  if  he  had  proved  to  his  own 

69 


70  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

satisfaction  that  he  possessed  the  usual  amount  of 
"guts,"  it  seemed  that  he  was  a  kind  of  freak. 
There  was  no  getting  to  the  bottom  of  the  mystery. 
Yet,  when  he  came  to  consider  himself,  he  was  cer- 
tain that  his  attitude  was  infinitely  humble.  Per- 
haps that  was  the  trouble.  Other  chaps  didn't  think 
about  themselves.  Edwin  envied  them  unfeignedly. 
He  felt  that  he  was  condemned  to  travel  a  sort  of 
vicious  circle.  Thus,  if  he  were  honest  to  himself 
he  was  bound  to  fail  in  the  ordinary  normal  stand- 
ard and  to  be  considered,  if  not  a  prig,  an  oddity. 
If,  by  enormous  efforts,  he  were  to  compel  himself 
into  the  trodden  ways  of  thought  and  conduct,  he 
couldn't  be  honest — and  in  the  process  of  regain- 
ing his  honesty  he  found  himself  fighting  his  way 
back  to  the  original  misfortune.  There  was  no  way 
out  of  it.  Isolated  he  must  be.  He  determined, 
above  all  things,  that  even  if  he  were  not  ashamed 
of  his  isolation,  he  wouldn't  be  proud  of  it.  It  wasn't 
easy. 

The  whole  incident  of  the  Birches — which,  after 
all,  he  had  meant  for  a  sort  of  private  trial — was 
becoming  a  nuisance.  He  almost  welcomed  the 
attitude  of  Griffin,  who  scoffed  at  the  whole  busi- 
ness and  refused  to  believe  he  had  been  there. 
Griffin,  his  own  reputation  for  valour  and  cunning 
being  in  question,  determined  to  prove  that  Edwin 
had  not  been  near  the  race.  In  the  dormitory  that 
night  the  coalition  set  themselves  to  this  business, 
beginning  with  an  examinatllp  at  the  hands  of 
Griffin  himself. 

"Widdup  says  you  went  to  see  the  Birches  run." 

"Does  he?"  said  Edwin. 


THUNDER  WEATHER  71 

"Now,  none  of  your  fooling,  Ingleby.  You're  a 
damned  little  liar.  You  never  put  your  nose  near 
the  races." 

"Well,  it  doesn't  matter  to  you  anyway." 

"Doesn't  it?  You'll  soon  know  that  it  does. 
We're  not  going  to  have  any  liars  in  this  house. 
You'd  better  tell  the  truth  at  once." 

"All  right,  then.     I  did  go  to  the  races." 

"The  swine !  .  .  .  Get  a  towel,  Duggie." 

"Well  .  .  .  you  asked  me.  .  .  ." 

"Now,  I'm  going  to  prove  that  you're  a  liar. 
Of  course  you  know  that  already.  But  you  ought 
to  be  shown  up  for  your  own  good.  Then  you'll  get 
a  tight  six.  What  were  Airs  and  Graces'  colours?" 

"I  don't  know  what  his  colours  were." 

Griffin  howled.  "HIS  .  .  .  listen  to  the  swine.  He 
doesn't  know  a  horse  from  a  mare,  Duggie.  Ingleby, 
how  do  you  tell  a  horse  from  a  mare?"  Edwin 
blushing,  was  overwhelmed  with  laughter.  By  this 
time  the  towel  was  ready,  wet,  and  twisted  into  a 
cable.  "I'll  teach  you  the  colours  of  Airs  and 
Graces,"  said  Griffin.  "We've  had  quite  enough  of 
your  airs  and  graces  here.  Next  time  you'll  find  it 
pays  to  tell  the  truth  in  this  dormitory." 

Edwin  got  his  six,  having  been  bent  double  over 
the  end  of  his  own  bed  by  the  other  seekers  after 
truth.  It  was  worth  it.  When  the  lights  were  out 
and  he  was  comfortably  settled  in  bed  he  decided 
that  that  sort  of  thing  oughtn't  to  make  any  differ- 
ence. "My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is,"  he  said  to 
himself;  and  in  his  mind  the  great  guts  question 
had  been  settled  for  ever.  As  for  the  lamming.  . . . 
Well,  it  might  have  been  a  gym  shoe.  .  .  .  While 


72  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

lie  lay  thinking  of  these  things  he  was  surprised 
to  hear  the  voice  of  Widdup,  who  slept  next  to 
him,  speaking  in  a  whisper.  "I  say,"  he  said, 
"did  you  really  go  to  the  Birches,  or  were  you  pull- 
ing my  leg?" 

"Of  course  I  did,"  he  replied.  It  gave  him  a 
little  shock  to  find  that  so  slight  a  thing  as  a  dis- 
play of  physical  violence  had  shaken  Widdup's 
faith. 

"I'm  glad  of  that,"  came  Widdup's  apologetic 
whisper.  A  long  silence.  "You've  won  the  sweep, 
anyway,"  said  Widdup.  "Thirty-eight  and  six- 
pence." Edwin  grunted. 

"If  you  reckon  that  you'll  be  here  four  more 
years,  taking  into  account  the  number  of  men — • 
average,  you  know — who  go  in  for  the  house  sweep 
every  year,  you  could  calculate  the  exact  chances 
against  your  ever " 

He  was  asleep. 

n 

And  while  he  slept  after  that  day  of  unusual  ex- 
citement and  fierce  colour,  he  had  a  curious  dream. 
In  the  beginning  it  reflected  a  little  of  the  anxieties 
of  the  afternoon,  for  he  found  himself  hurrying  in 
the  middle  of  a  huge  and  sweaty  crowd  which  made 
no  way  for  him.  He  did  not  know  why  he  was  run- 
ning so  violently ;  but  of  one  thing  he  was  certain, 
and  this  was  that  he  was  going  to  be  late.  At  first 
he  had  in  front  of  him  the  little  man  in  the  rusty 
coat  who  had  been  his  companion  on  the  Downs: 
the  same  queer  creature  now  endowed  with  an 
aspect  even  more  grotesque  and  an  agility  more 


THUNDER  WEATHER  73 

elfish,  so  that  Edwin  knew  from  the  first  that  this 
time  he  was  sure  to  lose  him  and  never  to  catch 
him  up  again.  All  the  masses  of  people  through 
whom  he  pressed  were  moving  even  faster  than  him- 
self and  in  the  same  direction,  so  that  it  seemed  as 
if  he  could  never  gain  ground  at  all,  but  must  go 
on  running  for  ever  with  no  sight  of  his  goal,  nor 
any  hope  of  getting  nearer  to  it.  At  last  his  breath 
gave  out,  and  he  stopped.  It  wasn't  a  bit  of  good ; 
for  the  moving  crowd  wouldn't  stop  writh  him,  and 
he  was  pushed  forward  by  this  multitude  of  tall 
people,  knowing  that  if  he  faltered  for  a  moment  or 
fell  (as  in  the  end  he  must),  he  would  certainly  be 
trampled  to  death  by  the  feet  of  those  who  followed. 

At  last  the  little  man  outstripped  him  altogether, 
and  feeling  that  he  had  lost  all  hope,  Edwin  gave  a 
cry.  When  he  cried  out  the  whole  hurrying  crowd 
melted  away,  the  noise  of  their  padding  footsteps 
left  a  clear  patch  of  silence  (it  was  like  that)  and 
a  puff  of  cool,  thin  air  blew  suddenly  right  into  his 
nostrils.  He  thought,  "I'm  not  going  to  be  late  after 
all.  .  .  .  Why  didn't  they  tell  me  that  I  was  going 
to  Uffdown?"  There  was  no  air  like  that  in  the 
world.  He  drank  it  down  in  gulps  as  a  horse  drinks 
water.  "Eddie,  you'll  choke  yourself,"  his  mother 
said.  .  .  .  "The  light  won't  last  much  longer."  "But 
why  should  it  last,  darling?"  he  replied.  "You've 
got  to  look  over  there,"  she  said,  "in  the  west.  You 
see  that  level  ridge  dropping  suddenly?  Well,  it's 
the  third  farm  from  the  end.  Do  you  see?" 

"Yes,  darling,  I  can  see  it  quite  clearly.  .  .  ." 
And  he  did  see  it.  A  long  building  of  bluish  stone 
with  small  windows  set  flush  in  the  walls  and  no 


74  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

dripstones  save  one  above  the  oak  doorway.  Not 
a  soul  to  be  seen.  It  looked  as  if  the  place  had  been 
deserted  by  living  creatures  for  many  years.  "I 
can  see  it,"  he  said,  "but  I  don't  think  anybody  lives 
there." 

"But  you  can  see  it?"  she  asked  him  eagerly. 
"Can  you  see  the  little  bedroom  window  on  the  left 
• — the  third  from  the  end — quite  a  little  window?" 
It  was  difficult  to  see,  for,  after  all,  it  was  more 
than  a  hundred  miles  away,  and  all  the  time  that 
he  was  looking,  the  streamers  of  cloud  kept  rolling 
down  from  the  darens  on  the  mountain  and  drench- 
ing the  whole  scene  in  mist.  "Eddie  .  .  .  there's 
not  much  time,"  she  pleaded.  "Do  tell  me." 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "I  can  see  the  window  you  mean." 
She  sighed.     "I'm  so  glad,  Eddie.     I  did  want 
to  show  it  you." 

"But  why  were  you  in  such  a  hurry?" 
"It  was  my  last  chance  of  showing  it  to  you." 
'^Whatever  do  you  mean,  darling?" 
She  turned  her  face  away.     Now  it  was  quite 
dark.    "I'm  really  dreaming,"  he  thought,  "and  this 
is  a  sort  of  stage  on  which  they  can  do  lightning 
tricks  like  that."     But  there  was  no  doubt  about 
it  being  Uffdown.    All  round  the  sky  the  pit-fires 
of   the   black-country  were   flickering   out.     And 
though  he  couldn't  see  her  face,  he  could  feel  her 
soft  hand  in  his.    "At  any  rate,  I've  written  .  .  ." 
she  said  at  last. 

That  was  the  sentence  which  he  carried  in  his 
mind  when  he  awoke.  A  letter.  But  she  didn't 
usually  write  to  him  before  Sunday,  and  it  was 
now  only  Saturday.  Yet,  when  he  came  into  Hall 


THUNDER  WEATHER  75 

for  breakfast  a  letter  was  lying  on  his  plate.  There 
was  something  so  strange  about  the  whole  business 
that  he  was  almost  afraid  to  open  it.  He  had  a 
sudden,  awful  intuition  that  she  was  dead.  Ridicu* 
lous,  of  course,  for  dead  people  didn't  write  letters. 
Smiling  at  himself,  yet  scarcely  reassured,  he 
opened  the  letter  and  read  it. 

"My  Darling  Boy  (she  wrote), — Did  you  really 
make  fifteen  ?  You  must  be  getting  on.  Aunt  Laura, 
has  just  been  in  to  tea,  and  we  talked  such  a  lot 
that  I  have  only  just  time  to  write  this  before  father 
goes  down  to  business  and  can  post  it.  I  have 
some  very  interesting  news  for  you.  The  other 
afternoon  Mrs.  Willis  of  Mawne  came  in  to  see  me. 
She  and  Lilian  are  going  to  Switzerland  for  a 
month  this  summer,  and  now  she  suggests  that  I 
should  join  them  there.  It  won't  be  just  yet,  and 
I  think— no,  Pm  sure— that  I  should  be  back  again 
before  your  holidays.  Father  wants  me  to  go.  I 
haven't  been  very  well,  and  the  doctor  says  he's 
sure  it  would  do  me  good.  All  my  life  I've  wanted 
to  see  Switzerland.  I'm  most  awfully  excited  about 
it,  Eddie,  and  father  says  he  can  spare  me.  Won't 
it  be  wonderful?  They  are  going  about  the  end 
of  June.  I  won't  forget  that  postal  order,  but  I'm 
rather  poor  myself  just  at  present.  Eddie,  do  you 
keep  my  letters?  I  think  I  should  like  you  to.  The 
double  stocks  which  father  planted  in  the  long  bed 
are  just  coming  out. 

"Good-bye,  my  darling, 
"Tour  loving 

"Mother." 


76  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Of  course  nothing,  in  spite  of  the  news  of  the 
Swiss  excursion,  could  be  more  ordinary.  That 
would  be  wonderful  for  her  ...  of  course  it  would. 
And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  reasonable  convictions 
he  couldn't  get  that  dream  out  of  his  head.  Some- 
thing, he  felt  sure,  was  going  wrong. 

He  tried  to  analyse  the  source  of  his  disquietude. 
"Perhaps  I'm  jealous,"  he  thought.  He  was  most 
awfully  jealous  of  anything  that  other  people  had 
to  do  with  his  mother,  and,  anyway,  he  didn't  know 
these  Willis  people  very  well.  They  were  new 
friends  of  hers:  a  family  of  wealthy  iron-masters 
whose  works  had  suddenly  risen  in  the  year  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  war,  and  were  now  slowly  but  gi- 
gantically expanding.  They  lived  at  Mawne  Hall, 
a  sad  but  pretentious  mansion  of  the  departed  Pom- 
frets,  of  which  Edwin  knew  only  the  wrought-iron 
gates  at  the  bottom  of  a  steep  drive.  They  had  a 
son,  Edward,  of  very  much  the  same  age  as  him- 
self, but  the  Willises  had  no  great  educational  am- 
bitions (that  was  where  Edwin's  mother  came  in), 
and  had  sent  him  to  the  ancient  but  decaying  Gram- 
mar School  of  Halesby,  an  impossible  concern  in 
the  eyes  of  any  public-schoolboy.  The  Willises  had 
pots  of  money.  Here  again  Edwin  suspected  them. 
It  rather  looked  as  if  they  had  "taken  up"  his  moth- 
er; and  nobody  on  earth  had  the  right  to  do  that. 
He  hated  the  Willises  (and  particularly  Edward) 
in  advance.  He  always  hated  people  he  hadn't  met 
when  he  heard  too  much  about  them.  He  thought 
that  the  new  intimacy  probably  had  something  to 
<lo  with  his  Aunt  Laura,  who  was  diffuse  and  fussy 


THUNDER  WEATHER  77 

i> 

and  ornate,  and  not  a  patch  on  his  mother.  No- 
body was  a  patch  on  his  mother  .  .  . 

He  couldn't  get  rid  of  his  anxiety,  and  so,  in  the 
heat  of  the  moment,  before  morning  school,  he  an- 
swered her  letter.  "Oh,  darling,  don't  go  to  Switz- 
erland with  a  lot  of  strangers.  If  you  do  go,  I  feel 
that  I  shall  never  see  you  again,"  he  wrote.  He 
knew  it  wouldn't  be  any  good.  She  couldn't  rea- 
sonably do  anything  but  smile  at  his  fancies.  But 
he  couldn't  help  it.  He  even  took  the  trouble  to 
post  the  letter  in  the  box  at  the  Grand  Entrance, 
so  as  to  make  certain  that  he  couldn't  change  his 
mind. 

On  the  way  into  the  classroom  he  met  Griffin, 
who  pushed  a  packet  into  his  hand.  "Here  you  are," 
he  said.  "Take  it."  It  was  thirty-eight  shillings 
in  silver,  the  first  prize  in  the  house  sweep  on  the 
Birches.  He  wished  he  had  remembered  about  it. 
He  would  have  told  his  mother  in  the  letter  not  to 
bother  about  the  postal  order.  It  was  an  awful 
thing  to  think  of  her  being  hard-up  and  himself 
rolling  in  this  prodigious  and  ill-gotten  fortune. 

The  morning  class  was  listless,  for  the  weather 
remained  at  a  great  pitch  of  heat,  and  the  only  thing 
that  any  one  thought  of  was  the  fixture  with  the 
M.C.C.  which  would  begin  at  noon.  Cleaver  always 
assisted  as  umpire  at  this  match,  and  so  the  de- 
serted Lower  Fifth  occupied  a  corner  of  the  Big 
Schoolroom  by  themselves.  In  this  great  chamber 
— it  was  said  that  the  roof-span  was  as  wide  as 
any  in  England — Edwin  dreamed  away  the  morn- 
ing, reading,  sometimes,  the  gilt  lettering  on  the 
boards  on  which  the  names  of  scholars  were  record- 


78  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ed:  giants  who  had  passed  before  him  along  the 
same  corridors,  and  whose  names  were  only  mem- 
orable as  those  of  heroes  in  a  mythology,  or  more 
ponderably  evident  in  reports  of  parliamentary  de- 
bates and  the  scores  of  county  cricket  teams. 

Opposite  him  hung  the  board  devoted  to  the  win- 
ners of  entrance  scholarships.  His  own  name  was 
there.  Edwin  Ingleby  .  .  .  1895.  He  remembered 
the  day  when  it  had  almost  embarrassed  him  with 
its  fresh  gold  lettering.  Now  the  leaf  had  toned 
down,  and  the  name  had  sunk  into  obscurity  be- 
neath a  dozen  others.  So  the  passage  of  fleet  time 
was  measured  on  these  tables.  In  a  few  more  years 
nobody  who  didn't  take  the  trouble  would  read  his 
name.  Even  those  of  the  batch  before  "him  were 
lialf -buried  in  obscurity.  One  other  name  arrested 
him:  G.  H.  Giles.  He  knew  nothing  of  Giles  ex- 
cept that  this  brilliant  beginning  had  been  followed 
by  disaster.  The  name  of  Giles  appeared  on  no 
other  board;  for  the  term  before  Edwin  came  to 
St.  Luke's  Giles  had  been  expelled  from  the  school. 
Edwin  didn't  know  what  he  had  been  expelled  for; 
but  the  circumstance,  remembered,  afflicted  him 
with  a  kind  of  awe.  "It  might  happen  so  easily,"  he 
thought.  Why,  if  he  hadn't  lied  to  the  Head  the 
day  before  he  might  have  been  expelled  himself, 
and  years  afterwards  some  one  sitting  in  his  place 
would  stare  at  the  name  of  Ingleby  with  the  self- 
same awe.  The  voice  of  Mr.  Leeming,  stuck  fast 
where  Edwin  had  left  him  a  year  before,  in  the 
Stuart  period,  recalled  him.  "We  will  pass  over 
the  unpleasant .  .  .  most  unpleasant  side  of  Charles 


THUNDER  WEATHER  79 

the  Second's  reign.  Unfortunately,  he  was  a  thor- 
oughly bad  man,  and  his  court  .  .  ." 

Edwin  heard  no  more,  but  he  heard  another  sound 
peculiar  to  the  Big  Schoolroom  on  Saturday  morn- 
ings: the  measured  steps  of  the  school  sergeant 
plodding  down  the  long  stone  corridor  which  led 
to  the  folding  doors.  On  Saturday  morning  the 
form-masters  presented  their  weekly  reports  to  the 
Head,  and  boys  whose  names  came  badly  out  of  the 
ordeal  were  summoned  to  the  office  to  be  lectured, 
to  be  put  on  the  sort  of  probation  known  as  "Satis- 
fecit,"  or  even  to  be  caned. 

The  Lower  Fifth  knew  none  of  these  terrors. 
Cleaver  was  far  too  easy-going  to  take  his  weekly 
report  seriously ;  but  the  lower  ranks  of  Mr.  Leem- 
ing's  form  trembled.  You  could  never  be  sure  of 
old  Leeming.  The  folding  doors  opened.  Mr.  Leem- 
ing  stopped  speaking,  and  the  sergeant  walked  up 
to  his  desk  and  stood  waiting  at  attention  while 
Leeming  read  his  list.  He  looked  over  his  glasses. 
"Let  me  see  ...  Sherard  .  .  ."  he  said.  "Sherard, 
the  head-master  wishes  to  see  you  at  twelve-thirty." 
His  voice  was  so  gently  sympathetic  that  nobody 
could  possibly  imagine  that  he  had  had  anything  to 
do  with  this  calamity.  "Then  .  .  .  the  Lower 
Fifth  .  .  ."  he  fumbled  with  the  paper.  "Ingleby. 
The  head-master  will  se,e  you  at  the  same  time." 
He  looked  over  at  Edwin  with  the  most  pained  sur- 
prise. "Very  good,  sergeant,"  he  said. 

Edwin  felt  himself  going  white.  Yes,  that  was 
it.  That  was  the  explanation  of  his  feeling  of  un, 
rest.  He  was  going  to  share  the  fate  of  the  tradi- 
tional Giles.  Good  Lord  .  .  think  of  it!  Miss 


8o  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Denning  had  done  this.  And  yet  he  could  hardly 
believe  it — she  had  always  been  far  too  nice  for 
that.  Now  his  face  was  burning.  It  struck  him 
that  it  wasn't  a  bit  of  good  worrying.  If  it  weren't 
...  if  it  weren't  for  his  mother  it  really  wouldn't 
be  so  bad.  He  couldn't  bear  to  think  of  her  dis- 
appointment in  his  disgrace.  She  thought  so 
much  of  him.  It  wouldn't  be  quite  so  bad  if  she 
were  not  ill.  It  might  kill  her.  Good  God!  .  .  . 
that  would  be  awful!  Suppose,  after  all  (it  was 
no  good  supposing),  that  the  Head  wanted  to  see 
him  about  something  else.  .  .  .  There  wasn't  any- 
thing else.  Unless  .  .  .  unless  it  were  something 
to  do  with  his  mother.  Unless  she  were  seriously 
ill  ...  even  something  worse.  But  he  had  her 
letter.  It  couldn't  be  that.  Yesterday  she  was  well 
enough  to  write  to  him.  No  .  .  .  the  story  was  out, 
and  he  was  going  to  be  expelled.  In  three  quarters 
of  an  hour  he  would  know  the  worst.  He  wished 
that  the  time  would  pass  more  quickly.  Time  had 
never  been  so  slow  in  passing.  The  clock  in  the 
tower  chimed  the  quarter.  From  where  he  sat  he 
could  see  the  tower  through  the  upper  lights  of  the 
long  window.  He  could  see  the  minute-hand  give 
a  little  lurch  and  move  infinitesimally  forward.  He 
remembered  Widdup  telling  him  exactly  how  many 
times  it  moved  to  the  minute.  Was  it  twice  .  .  . 
or  three  times?  He  had  forgotten.  There  must  be 
something  wrong  with  the  clock  to-day.  In  the 
middle  of  this  purgatory  one  half-humorous  fancy 
came  to  him:  "At  any  rate  old  Griff  will  know; 
that  I  did  go  to  the  races  now." 


JHUNDER  WEATHER  81 

in 

They  waited,  ten  or  twelve  of  them,  in  the  twi- 
light of  the  passage  outside  the  Head's  study.  The 
atmosphere  of  this  place  resembled  that  of  a  crypt, 
or  more  properly — since  the  keynote  of  the  St. 
Luke's  architecture  was  baronial  rather  than  mon- 
astic— a  dungeon.  The  only  light  that  came  to 
them  entered  by  way  of  certain  dusty  windows  of 
lancet  shape  on  either  side  of  the  gothic  porch.  Be- 
neath these  windows  languished  a  pale  array  of 
botanical  specimens  rotting  in  their  test  tubes 
and  bearing  witness  to  the  week-old  zeal  of  the 
Head's  particular  section  of  the  Natural  History 
Society. 

They  waited,  a  miserable  company  of  all  shapes 
and  sizes :  some,  who  knew  the  worst,  with  a  rather 
exaggerated  jauntiness,  determined  to  make  the 
best  of  it:  others,  such  as  Edwinr  being  in  doubt 
of  their  fate  and  burdened  with  a  spiritual  appre- 
hension far  worse  than  any  physical  penalty  which 
might  overtake  them. 

The  sergeant  opened  the  door.  "Sherard  W.," 
he  said.  Sherard  W.  crammed  a  sweaty  cap  into 
his  pocket  and  started  forward,  eager  to  get  it 
over.  The  aperture  which  admitted  him  showed  no 
more  than  the  end  of  a  table  crammed  with  books, 
a  number  of  highly-varnished  shelves,  a  polished 
floor  covered  with  Turkey  carpet,  and  a  blaze  of 
mocking  sunshine.  The  nails  in  the  heels  of  Sher- 
ard W.'s  boots  rang  on  the  stone  flags.  When  he 
reached  the  Turkey  carpet  his  steps  became  silent. 
The  door  closed.  The  rest  of  them  strained  to 


82  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

listen.  They  heard  little:  nothing  but  the  quiet 
rumour  of  the  head-master's  voice,  and  little  patches 
of  silence  in  which  the  replies  of  Sherard  W.  were 
not  heard  at  all.  A  moment  later  he  emerged.  A 
number  of  whispered  questions  assailed  him,  but 
Sherard  W.  didn't  feel  like  answering  questions.  He 
brushed  by  the  rest  of  them  as  quickly  as  he  could 
go,  with  his  school-cap  pressed  to  his  eyes.  An- 
other patch  of  sunlight  was  revealed.  "Fraz- 
er  .  .  ."  called  the  sergeant.  And  Frazer,  a  tall  lout 
of  a  boy  with  sallow  face,  came  forward  and  was 
swallowed  up  in  the  same  way  as  Sherard  W.  A 
minute  later  the  sound  of  dull  blows  was  heard. 

"Frazer's  got  it,"  said  somebody.  "One  .  .  . 
two  . ,.  .  three  .  .  .  four  .  .  .  five  .  .  .  six  .  .  .  Poor 
old  Frazer!" 

"Six  from  the  Head  isn't  equal  to  three  from 
Cleaver.  You  should  see  Cleaver's  biceps  in  the 
gym." 

One  by  one  the  members  of  the  crowd  entered  and 
returned.  It  seemed  to  Edwin  that  his  turn  would 
never  come.  All  the  time  that  he  waited  his  imagi- 
nation ( accursed  gift ! )  was  playing  with  the  hidden 
scene  within :  the  long  table,  that  he  had  seen  only 
once  before,  and,  at  the  head  of  it,  the  lean,  bearded 
figure  in  the  silk  gown  wielding  an  absolute  power 
of  life  and  death  like  God  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Yes,  it  was  just  like  that.  He  remembered  a  mina- 
tory text  that  hung  cobwebbed  in  one  of  the  attics 
at  home :  PREPARE  To  MEET  THY  GOD.  It  was  not 
pleasant  to  hear  these  muffled  sounds  of  chastise- 
ment, but  what  was  a  flogging  (the  Head's  favour- 
ite word)  compared  with  the  more  devastating  fate 


THUNDER  WEATHER  83 

that  awaited  him?  "That's  why  he's  keeping  me 
till  last,"  he  thought. 

"Ingleby  .  .  ."  said  the  sergeant.  Edwin  had 
time  to  fancy  that  his  tone  implied  a  more  awful 
enormity  than  he  had  put  into  any  other  name.  He 
entered,  and  stood  waiting  in  the  sunlight.  It  was 
rather  less  frightening  than  he  had  imagined,  this 
long  room,  relatively  luxurious,  and  the  pale  man 
at  the  head  of  the  table  with  his  lined,  black-beard- 
ed face,  and  the  peculiar  twitching  of  his  left  arm 
which  had  always  added  to  the  sinister  side  of  his 
equipment.  For  a  moment  he  took  no  notice  of  Ed- 
win. Then  he  looked  up  and  smiled.  Would  the 
storm  never  break? 

"Ah  .  .  .  Ingleby." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"I  hope  your  entomological  zeal  isn't  going  to 
take  you  up  to  the  racecourse,  Ingleby.  How  are 
the  puss-caterpillars  getting  on?" 

He  smiled  again,  and  showed  his  teeth  beneath 
his  shaggy  moustache.  Edwin  was  seized  with  a 
sudden  terror.  The  worst  had  happened,  and  now 
the  Head  was  playing  with  him.  He  could  say 
nothing. 

"Eh?  .  .  .  What's  the  matter  with  you?  You 
aren't  faint,  are  you?  You'd  better  sit  down." 

Edwin  trembled  into  a  chair. 

"Now,  are  you  all  right?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"I  sent  for  you,  Ingleby,  because  I  have  been  hav- 
ing a  talk  with  Mr.  Leeming." 

What  in  the  world  had  old  fat  Leeming  to  do 
with  it?  Edwin  wished  he  would  get  it  over. 


84  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Mr.  Leeming  has  always  given  me  good  reports 
of  you  ...  I  don't  know  if  you  deserve  them  .  .  . 
and  last  night  I  saw  Mr.  Cleaver,  who  .  .  .  um  .  .  . 
um  .  .  .  tells  me  that  you  are  one  of  ...  No,  I'll 
leave  that  part  out  .  .  .  that  you've  got  plenty  of 
brains  when  you  choose  to  use  them,  but  that  you 
are  somewhat  lacking  in  application.  H'm?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

Why  wouldn't  he  get  to  the  point? 

"He  says,  Ingleby,  that  you're  a  dreamer.  Well, 
you  know,  there's  no  use  for  dreamers  in  this  world. 
They're  not  wanted.  Even  dreamers  with  the  bless- 
ing of  good  brains.  H'm?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"But  Mr.  Leeming  is  satisfied,  and  so  am  I,  that 
if  you  chose  to  make  an  effort,  and  take  a  ...  a 
healthy  interest  in  things,  we  might  do  some  good 
with  you.  You  might  win  scholarships,  and  be  a 
credit  to  the  school.  That's  what  we  want.  That's 
what  your  parents  sent  you  here  for.  Now  .  .  . 
now  Mr.  Leeming  tells  me  that  you  aspire  to  be- 
coming a  priest  of  the  church.  .  .  ." 

"No,  sir." 

"No  .  .  .?  But  Mr.  Leeming  told  me  he  had 
talked  the  matter  over  with  you?" 

"He  mentioned  it,  sir  ...  but  I  didn't  say  any- 
thing. I  ...  don't  think  I  do  want  to,  sir." 

The  Head  frowned.  "You  mean  that  you  don't 
feel  worthy  of  so  great  a  vocation?  Well,  you're 
young.  You're  a  promising  boy.  I  want  to  do  what 
is  best  for  you  .  .  .  and  the  school.  At  the  end 
of  this  term  you  are  likely  to  get  a  move,  and  after 
a  certain  time  I  don't  think,  from  the  scholarship 


THUNDER  WEATHER  85 

point  of  view,  you  can  begin  to  specialise  too  early. 
You  have  shown  a  certain  .  .  .  aptitude  for  Eng- 
lish.    You  might  read  History.     You  might  stick 
to  Classics.    What  do  you  think  about  it?" 
"I  should  like  to  read  History,  sir." 
<rVery  well,  I'll  write  to  your  father  about  it.  We 
won't  say  anything  more  about  the  Church  for  the 
present.    That  will  come  later.    I  expect  Mr.  Leem- 
ing  will  talk  it  over  with  you.    You  may  go  now." 


CHAPTER  VII 

IMPURITY 


fin  HE  "little  chat" — as  Mr.  Leeming  would  cer- 
A  tainly  have  called  it — did  not  take  place  for  a 
long  time,  for  the  reverend  gentleman's  mind  had 
become  exercised  with  a  problem  of  greater  impor- 
tance than  the  devotion  of  Edwin.  It  wasn't  exactly 
his  fault.  Mr.  Leeming  was  a  bachelor.  He  was  now 
in  his  forty-third  year.  Naturally  endowed  with 
an  intense  shyness  of  disposition  which  the  forced 
publicity  of  his  two  professions,  in  the  pulpit  and 
the  classroom,  had  overlaid  with  a  veneer  of  suave 
assurance,  he  was  none  the  less  a  man  of  ardent, 
if  timid  passions.  He  himself  had  always  been 
aware  of  this  powerful  sensual  element  in  his  na- 
ture. With  a  certain  degree  of  courage  he  had 
subjected  it  to  a  deliberate  mortification.  Obsti- 
nately he  had  fitted  his  body  to  the  Procrustean 
couch  that  his  conscience  recommended:  obsti- 
nately, and  in  a  degree  successfully.  Not  quite 
successfully  .  .  .  for  his  original  appetites  were  un- 
wieldy, and  if  they  had  been  coerced  in  one  direc- 
tion they  had  undoubtedly  and  demonstrably  over- 
flowed in  another,  as  witnessed  the  growing  expanse 
of  his  waistcoat. 

This  waistcoat,  on  week-days  of  broadcloth  and 
86 


IMPURITY  87 

on  Sundays  of  a  more  sensual  silk,  was  the  symbol 
of  Mr.  Leeming's  possibilities.  He  didn't  know  it. 
Even  if  he  were  aware,  in  the  lacing  of  his  boots, 
of  its  physical  existence;  he  hadn't  the  least  idea 
of  its  spiritual  significance.  If  he  had  realised  this, 
if  he  had  been  content  to  see  himself  as  he  actually 
stood  upon  the  brink  of  his  morning  bath  instead 
of  as  a  snowy  surpliced  priest  of  God  or  a  knightly 
figure  in  the  armour  of  Sir  Percivale  (such,  indeed, 
was  his  Christian  name),  Mr.  Leeming  might  have 
been  a  healthier  and  a  happier  man.  As  it  was,  the 
devil  that  he  believed  he  had  conquered,  in  reality 
possessed  his  soul. 

In  his  quest  for  the  thing  which  he  had  labelled 
purity  he  had  unconsciously  allowed  the  idea  of 
"Impurity"  to  become  an  obsession.  In  the  activi- 
ties of  a  parish,  hustled  by  the  continual  accidents 
of  stark  life  and  stabilised  by  the  actual  responsi- 
bility of  a  wife  and  an  increasing  family,  Mr.  Leem- 
ing might  have  become  a  thinner  and  a  wiser  man. 
In  the  sedentary  and  monotonous  duties  of  a  pub- 
lic school,  he  had  become  gradually  more  fat  and 
introspective,  and,  as  the  years  advanced,  more  per- 
petually conscious  of  the  unashamed  presence 
throughout  human  nature  of  his  own  suppressed 
desires, — more  frightened  .  .  .  and  more  curious 
...  of  their  terrible  existence  and  more  terrible 
power.  Mr.  Leeming,  with  the  best  intentions  in 
the  world,  was  in  a  bad  way. 

A  number  of  circumstances  favoured  the  develop- 
ment of  the  unfortunate  gentleman's  obsession.  In. 
the  last  Easter  holidays  he  had  attended  a  confer- 
ence of  assistant  masters  in  London,  at  which  the 


88          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

whole  question  had  been  discussed  with  the  great- 
est solemnity,  and  plans  had  been  formulated  for 
the  stamping  out  of  "impurity"  in  every  public 
school  in  England.  The  speeches  of  the  delegates 
had  convinced  him  of  his  own  blindness.  It  was 
impossible  that  St.  Luke's  should  be  so  very  differ- 
ent from  any  other  public  school,  yet  other  people 
had  assured  the  meeting  that  in  their  own  schools 
tthe  disease  was  "rampant,"  and  Mr.  Leeming  had  re- 
turned to  his  summer  duties  convinced  that  if  only 
he  looked  with  sufficient  care  more  ills  than  he  had 
ever  suspected  might  be  found.  He  had  become  a 
man  with  a  mission. 

For  a  crusade  of  this  kind  St.  Luke's  was  not  by 
any  means  an  ideal  field.  The  head-master,  for  all 
his  imposing  presence,  was  not  a  practical  man.  He 
was  intolerant  of  enthusiasms  in  his  staff,  not  so 
much  because  they  were  symptomatic  of  ill-breed- 
ing, but  because  they  tended  to  disturb  the  pleasant 
ordered  tenor  of  his  life.  Croquet  and  botany  were 
sciences  of  more  interest  to  him  than  education.  He 
believed  in  hard  games,  corporal  punishment,  na- 
ture study,  and  the  classics.  He  hated  extremes.  The 
golden  mean  was  his  creed,  his  weakness,  and  his 
apology.  He  hadn't  any  use  for  Mr.  Leeming's  in- 
tensities. He  could  even  be  picturesque  on  oc- 
casion. "If  you  are  going  to  appoint  yourself  in- 
spector of  our  dirty  linen,  Leeming,"  he  said,  "you 
really  mustn't  expect  me  to  do  the  washing." 

"I  don't  think  you  understand  me,  sir,"  Mr.  Leem- 
ing began.  .  .  . 

"Oh,  don't  I?"  said  the  Head.  The  word  Im- 
purity formed  voicelessly  on  Mr.  Leeming's  lips. 


IMPURITY  89 

"It  is  a  scandalous  thing  .  .  .  scandalous  .  .  ." 
he  complained  to  the  common-room,  "that  a  man 
who  knows  what  is  right  and  is  determined  to  fol- 
low it  shouldn't  be  properly  backed  by  the  head- 
master. The  matter  is  vital.  It  is  the  most  im- 
portant ...  by  far  fhe  most  important  problem 
in  modern  education.  Any  means  are  justified  to 
purge  the  schools  of  this  sort  of  thing.  .  .  ." 

"I  can  see  you,  Leeming,"  drawled  Selby,  "in 
the  role  of  agent  provocateur."  The  common-room 
exploded. 

"What  is  wanted  in  the  public  schoolmaster  is 
a  higher  sense  of  seriousness,"  Leeming  spluttered. 
"You  have  no  sense  of  suspicion." 

"What  is  more  wanted  in  the  public  schools," 
said  Cleaver,  "is  a  suspicion  of  sense — common 
sense." 

"All  you  fellows  talk,"  said  Dr.  Downton,  "as  if 
the  whole  thing  were  a  problem  for  the  public 
schools  purely  and  simply.  It's  nothing  of  the  kind. 
It's  not  the  ignorance  of  the  average  schoolmaster 
as  much  as  the  ignorance  of  the  average  parent.  I 
mean  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  boys  .  .  .  lack 
of  sympathy,  lack  of  responsibility.  And  when  ugly 
things  happen  they  shove  it  on  to  us." 

"That's  what  they  pay  a  hundred  and  fifty  a 
year  for,"  said  Cleaver. 

"Of  which  we  don't  see  any  too  much  .  .  ."  Selby 
growled. 

"None  of  you  take  it  seriously.  The  thing  ia 
enormous,"  said  Leeming.  "What  can  you  expect 
in  a  way  of  improvement  when  a  housemaster  like 
Selby  makes  jokes  about  it?  I'm  convinced  that 


90          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

there's  only  one  way.  .  .  .  You  can't  drive  boys. 
You've  got  to  understand  their  hearts." 

"You've  got  to  understand  their  bodies,"  said 
Cleaver. 

Mr.  Leeming  flushed.  "I  think  you  are  merely 
disgusting,  Cleaver." 

"He's  quite  right,"  said  Downton.  "It  isn't  sexu- 
al education,  it  isn't  moral  instruction  that's  going 
to  work  the  miracle.  When  a  boy  reaches  a  cer- 
tain age — and  it  isn't  the  same  age  with  all  boys — 
he  begins  to  be  conscious,  and  quite  properly,  of 
his  physical  passions.  You  needn't  shudder,  Leem- 
ing. They  exist.  You  know  they  exist  as  well  as 
anybody.  Well,  when  he  reaches  that  stage  a  pub- 
lic school  isn't  the  proper  place  for  him." 

"The  games  would  go  to  pot,"  said  Cleaver.  From 
his  point  of  view  there  was  no  more  to  be  said. 

"It  depends  entirely  on  your  boy.  Some  are  too 
old  at  seventeen.  Some  are  perfectly  safe  at  nine- 
teen. The  trouble  is  that  just  when  you  get  them  in 
eight  of  these  dangers  you  put  them  in  supreme  au- 
thority. A  prefect  can  do  pretty  well  as  he 
likes.  .  .  ." 

"It's  the  essence  of  the  system  .  .  .  responsi- 
bility," said  Selby. 

"It  gives  them  what  Shaw  said  about  something 
else:  the  maximum  of  inclination  with  the  maxi- 
mum of  opportunity." 

"Shaw?"  said  Cleaver.  "You  fellows  are  too  deep 
for  me.  Anyway,  I  don't  believe  there's  much 
wrong  here.  So  long."  He  swung  out  of  the  room. 

"That  kind  of  man,"  said  Mr.  Leeming,  "is  at  the 
root  of  the  whole  business." 


IMPURITY  91 

Dr,  Downton  was  almost  angry.  'Ton  know, 
Leeming,  you're  talking  bosh.  The  thing's  solving 
itself.  All  over  the  world  schoolboys  are  getting 
wider  interests  at  school.  In  their  homes  they're 
taking  a  more  equal  place  in  family  life.  It  is  no 
longer  a  matter  of  being  seen  and  not  heard. 
They're  being  treated  like  human  beings.  The 
more  you  treat  them  like  human  beings  the  less 
likely  they  are  to  behave  like  young  animals.  And 
the  greatest  mistake  of  all  is  to  keep  on  talking 
to  them  about  it.  Every  boy  of  a  certain  age  is 
curious,  and  quite  naturally  curious,  about  his 
physical  possibilities.  So  is  every  girl.  .  .  ." 

"My  dear  Downton,"  said  Leeming  flushing,  "I 
shall  be  obliged  if  you  won't — er — pursue  the  sub- 
ject. You  make  it  painful.  .  .  ." 

"Very  well,"  said  Downton  gathering  up  the 
skirts  of  his  gown. 

"Thank  you."  Leeming  left  the  room.  Selb£ 
smiled  lazily. 

"If  only,"  he  said,  "if  only  our  friend  Leeming 
had  ever  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  a  really  bad 
woman's  society." 

n 

Unconscious  of  the  doom  which  was  being  forged 
for  their  chastisement  in  the  white  heat  of  Mr. 
Leeming's  troubled  brain,  the  school  lay  scattered 
along  the  perimeter  of  the  cricket-field  waiting 
for  the  players  to  emerge  from  the  pavilion.  They 
came,  and  the  great  expanse  of  green  was  made 
more  beautiful  by  their  scattered  figures.  Every- 
thing in  the  game  seemed  spacious  and  smooth  and 


92  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

clean — the  white  flannels  of  the  players;  the  paler 
green  of  the  rolled  pitch;  the  new  red  ball;  the 
sharp  click  of  the  bat.  Before  lunch  the  school 
had  lost  three  wickets,  but  now  it  seemed  as  if  a 
stand  were  to  be  made.  The  studious  Carr,  the 
head  of  Edwin's  house,  was  batting  steadily ;  while 
Gilson,  the  school's  most  showy  batsman,  who  would 
play  for  Surrey  in  the  holidays,  was  beginning  to 
get  set.  Edwin  and  Widdup  had  their  deck-chairs 
side  by  side,  and  Douglas,  for  want  of  Griffin,  ab- 
sent on  some  deeper  business,  had  pitched  himself 
near  them,  reclining  upon  a  positive  divan  of 
downy  cushions. 

The  winnings  of  the  house  sweepstake,  easily 
gained,  and  therefore  easily  to  be  spent,  supplied 
the  natural  accompaniment  of  ices  and  ginger  beer 
or  that  inimitable  compound  of  both  that  *was 
known  as  the  Strawberry  Cooler.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances the  mere  fact  of  lazy  existence  was  a 
pleasure.  Even  when  the  cautious  Carr  was 
bowled,  the  long  partnership  ended,  and  the  St. 
Luke's  wickets  began  to  fall  like  autumn  leaves,  the 
serene  beauty  of  the  day  was  scarcely  clouded. 

In  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  the  figure  of  Mr. 
Leeming  drifted  along  the  edge  of  the  field.  He 
halted  on  the  path  immediately  in  front  of  Edwin 
with  his  back  to  the  spectators,  considerably  in- 
commoding Douglas's  view  of  the  play.  "Old 
Beelzebub's  a  friend  of  yours,  isn't  he,  Ingleby?" 
said  Douglas  lazily.  "You  might  tell  him  that  he 
isn't  made  of  glass."  But  Mr.  Leeming,  suddenly 
aware  of  a  voice  behind  him,  turned  and  came 
towards  them,  smiling. 


IMPURITY  93 

"Ah,  Ingleby,"  he  said.    "Is  that  you?" 

He  sat  on  the  grass  beside  them,  very  carefully, 
as  befitted  a  man  of  his  figure.  "A  beautiful  day. 
Let  me  see,  who  are  we  playing?" 

"The  M.C.C.,  sir." 

"Ah,  yes  .  .  .  the  Marylebone  Cricket  Club.  Are 
you  fond  of  cricket,  Ingleby?" 

"Of  course  I  am,  sir." 

"I  very  seldom  see  you  now.  That's  the  pity  of 
it.  The  better  a  boy  is  the  less  you  see  of  him.  He 
passes  through  your  form  quickly,  and  that's  the 
end  of  it.  And  how  is  Widdup?" 

Widdup  was  very  well,  if  a  little  impatient. 

"You  and  Ingleby  are  great  friends,  Widdup. 
Quite  inseparable.  I've  often  seen  you  walking 
up  and  down  the  quad  at  night.  I  wonder  what 
it  is  you  have  in  common,  eh?" 

Widdup  didn't  know.  They'd  always  been  pals. 
They'd  always  slept  alongside  each  other.  That 
was  how  you  got  to  know  a  chap. 

"Well,  Ingleby,  what  are  you  reading  in  these 
days?" 

"Well  hit,  sir;  oh,  well  hit.  .  .  .  Make  it  five. 
I  beg  your  pardon,  sir  ...  I  don't  think  I'm  read- 
ing anything  in  particular." 

Slowly  it  became  evident  to  Mr.  Leeming  that 
the  audience  which  he  had  honoured  with  his  com- 
pany was  bored.  With  great  dignity  he  picked 
himself  up  and  left  them. 

"He's  a  funny  old  swine,"  said  Douglas. 

"I  used  to  think  he  was  rather  decent,"  said 
Edwin.  "Horribly  'pi'  you  know." 

"I  don't  trust  him,"  said  Douglas.    "I  always  feel 


94  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

as  if  he's  up  to  some  low-down  business  or  other. 
He  goes  mooching  about  in  those  old  felt  slippers 
of  his,  and  you  never  know  where  he  is.  The  other 
day  he  came  into  the  long  box-room  when  Griff 
and  I  were  there  playing  Nap.  You  couldn't  tell 
he  was  coming.  He's  like  a  damned  old  tomcat. 
I  can't  think  how  you  stick  him,  Ingleby.  .  .  ." 

"I  don't,  really,"  Edwin  confessed. 

"And  old  Griff  says  he  follows  him  like  a  shadow. 
Just  lately  he's  taken  to  haunting  the  swimming- 
bath.  I  don't  know  what  he  goes  there  for.  He 
never  used  to.  He  never  goes  in.  I  don't  suppose 
the  fat  beast  can  swim." 

"He  could  float  .  .  ."  said  the  practical  Widdup. 

The  golden  afternoon  dragged  out  its  lovely 
length.  The  atmosphere  of  luxurious  indolence 
grew  so  heavy  that  it  became  too  great  an  effort 
to  think  of  carrying  the  rugs  and  deck-chairs  back 
to  the  studies;  and  when  Douglas  had  left  them  to 
keep  an  appointment  with  Griffin,  Widdup  and 
Edwin  sat  on  till  the  meadows  swam  with  soft 
golden  light,  till  the  tops  of  the  pyramidal  lime- 
trees  became  the  colour  of  their  blossoms,  and  the 
sun  cast  long  shadows  upon  the  yellow  fields.  In 
this  delightful  hour  the  sounds  of  the  match  from 
which  excitement  had  faded  almost  as  the  fierce- 
ness had  faded  from  the  sky,  became  no  more  than 
a  placid  accompaniment  to  the  dying  day.  At  six- 
thirty  stumps  were  drawn.  The  wide  fields  began 
to  empty  and  soon  no  life  was  seen  upon  them  but 
low  dipping  swallows  who  skimmed  the  smooth 
lawn  as  though  it  were  the  surface  of  some  placid 


IMPURITY  95 

lake.  Upon  the  hillside  a  straggling  trail  of  boys 
could  be  seen  taking  home  their  rugs  and  cushions 
as  though  they  were  returning  from  a  day  of  toil 
instead  of  one  of  the  most  exquisite  idleness. 

"Come  on,"  said  Widdup  at  last;  "we  shall  be 
late  for  chapel."  And  indeed  another  twenty 
minutes  found  them  assembled  in  the  oak  pews  for 
evensong.  They  sang  the  Nunc  Dimittis,  a  canticle 
which  for  all  the  rest  of  his  life  Edwin  associated 
with  the  placid  closing  of  a  summer  day,  and  the 
mild  rays  of  the  departing  sun  blazed  through  the 
stained  glass  of  the  west  window  upon  the  pale 
mosaic  of  the  nave.  When  they  emerged  from  the 
chapel  the  sun  had  set,  the  skyline  of  the  downs  lay 
low  and  almost  cold,  and  cockchafers  were  whirring 
blindly  among  the  sticky  tops  of  the  conifers  along 
the  chapel  path. 

In  the  middle  of  the  crowd  that  stuck  congested 
in  the  porch  Edwin  found  himself  wedged  between 
Douglas  and  Griffin.  They  whispered  together  be- 
hind his  back.  "Well,  are  you  going?" 

"Of  course  I'm  going,  I  told  you." 

"You've  fixed  it  up  with  her?" 

"Yes,  she's  up  to  any  sport.  Why  don't  you 
come  with  us?" 

"Two's  company.  .  .  ." 

"Go  on  with  you.  .  .  .  You  can  easily  pick  up 
another.  You're  not  a  sportsman,  Duggie." 

"I  don't  take  risks  of  that  kind.  You  bet  your 
boots  I  don't.  Why  don't  you  ask  Ingleby?  He's 
a  blood.  Says  he  went  to  see  the  Birches.  And 
he's  flush,  too.  Won  the  sweep." 


96  THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Ingleby?"  Griffin  scoffed.  "I  bet  you  he'd 
funk  it." 

"Funk  what?"  said  Edwin. 

"Going  down  town  to-night.  There's  a  fair  on. 
I'm  taking  the  skivvy  from  J  dorm.  She's  all  right. 
She  knows  a  thing  or  two." 

"Don't  talk  so  loud,  you  ass,"  said  Douglas. 

"Well,  will  you  come?" 

"No,  I  won't,"  said  Edwin. 

"You  said  you  went  to  the  Birches." 

"I  did  go  to  the  Birches." 

"Well,  nobody  believes  you.  Now's  your  chance 
to  show  your  pluck.  Come  along,  gentlemen,  show 
your  pluck.  .  .  .  Three  to  one  bar  one.  .  .  .  'Ere 
you  are,  sir.  The  old  and  trusted  firm.  Ingleby 
.  .  .  you  are  a  rotten  little  funk !" 

Edwin  said  nothing.  "He's  got  more  sense  than 
you  have,  anyway,  Griff,"  said  Douglas. 

That  night  in  the  dormitory  when  the  lights  were 
turned  down  Griffin  had  not  appeared.  Douglas, 
who  slept  next  to  him,  had  constructed,  by  means 
of  his  own  bolster  and  another  confiscated  from 
the  bed  of  the  small  boy  on  whom  the  animosity  of 
the  coalition  was  now  chiefly  lavished,  a  very 
plausible  imitation  of  Griffin's  prostrate  figure.  As 
Griffin  habitually  slept  in  a  position  which  enabled 
him  to  absorb  his  own  fugginess,  this  was  not  diffi- 
cult. When  Edwin  went  to  sleep  Griffin  had  not 
arrived.  Drugged  with  fresh  air  he  slept  un- 
troubled by  any  dream.  In  the  middle  of  the  night 
(as  it  seemed)  he  awoke,  not  because  he  had 
heard  any  sound  but  rather  because  he  had  become 
aware  in  his  sleep  of  some  unusual  presence.  He 


IMPURITY  97 

did  not  move,  but  slowly  opened  his  eyes,  and  all 
he  saw  was  the  figure  of  Mr.  Selby,  gigantically 
tall,  clad  in  a  long  bath-gown  of  Turkish  towelling 
and  carrying  a  lighted  candle  that  cast  a  shadow 
even  more  gigantic  on  the  whitewashed  walls.  He 
moved  slowly  and  his  bedroom  slippers  made  no* 
sound  on  the  boarded  floor.  Opposite  the  foot  of  Ed- 
win's and  Widdup's  bed  he  paused  for  a  moment. 
Edwin  closed  his  eyes.  He  felt  the  eyelids  quiver. 
Why  on  earth  should  Selby  want  to  look  at  him? 
He  passed  on,  and  Edwin,  cautiously  opening  his 
eyes,  saw  him  pause  again  opposite  the  gap  be- 
tween Douglas  and  Griffin.  At  this  point  he 
waited  longer.  He  appeared  to  be  thinking.  He 
passed  on  and  then  suddenly  turned  back  and 
gently  lifted  the  sheet  from  Griffin's  pillow.  Gently 
he  replaced  it.  Edwin  was  almost  too  sleepy  to 
realize  that  Griffin  wasn't  there;  but  when  he  did, 
the  first  thought  which  came  into  his  mind  was  one 
of  spontaneous  and  inexplicable  loyalty.  He 
thought,  "Poor  old  Griff :  He's  in  for  it."  And  yet, 
if  there  was  one  person  in  the  world  against  whom 
he  had  a  reasonable  excuse  for  hatred  .  .  .  Very 
silently  Selby  left  the  dormitory.  Edwin  became 
conscious  of  the  ghostly  noises  of  the  night :  a  night- 
jar spinning  in  the  wood  at  the  back  of  the  School- 
house:  the  boom  of  a  cockchafer  that  some  en- 
thusiast had  captured  and  imported  into  the  dormi- 
tory. The  clock  in  the  high  turret  struck  twelve. 
The  chime  wandered  clanging  over  the  empty 
quadrangle. 


98          THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

in 

The  next  week  was  the  most  sensational  that 
had  ever  shaken  the  placid  life  of  St.  Luke's.  The 
fall  of  Griffin  was  no  startling  matter — deliberately 
he  had  been  "asking  for  it,"  and  the  escapade  of 
the  fair  in  race-week  was  no  more  than  a  crown- 
ing glory.  Still,  it  was  an  impressive  affair.  Im- 
mediately after  breakfast  next  morning  it  wag 
whispered  that  Griffin  had  been  sent  to  the  in- 
fectious ward  in  the  sanatorium,  which  was  always 
devoted,  by  reason  of  its  size  rather  than  any  con- 
scious attempt  at  symbolism,  to  the  isolation  of 
moral  leprosy.  It  became  certain — and  Edwin, 
after  his  vision  of  Selby's  visit  in  the  night  had 
taken  it  for  granted — that  Griffin  was  to  be 
"bunked."  In  the  afternoon,  Douglas,  faithfully 
prowling  near  his  comrade's  prison,  had  seen 
Griffin,  splendidly  unrepentant,  at  the  high  window 
of  his  condemned  cell.  Griffin  had  smiled.  Griffin, 
evidently,  didn't  give  a  damn  for  the  whole  busi- 
ness. The  house  thrilled.  Of  such  stuff  heroes 
were  made.  It  remained  to  be  seen,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  critical,  how  Griffin  would  shape  in  the  su- 
preme test  of  the  scaffold  on  which  he  would  prob- 
ably be  birched  before  the  assembled  school.  The 
betting  was  all  on  Griffin's  being  a  sportsman. 

There  followed  a  day  of  suspense.  Consultations 
between  masters  were  noticed.  Selby,  for  a  whole 
hour,  had  been  closeted  with  the  Head.  Old  fat 
Leeming  had  been  sent  for  at  last  to  join  their 
deliberations.  What  had  Leeming  to  do  with  it? 
Other  housemasters  had  been  summoned  to  the 


IMPURITY  99 

room  beneath  the  clock  and  emerged  with  un- 
usually serious  faces.  Who  was  this  Griffin  that 
his  fate  should  shake  the  foundations  of  Olympus? 
The  Head,  indeed,  showed  his  seriousness  more 
clearly  than  all  the  others.  He  arrived  late  in 
chapel,  where  the  service  had  waited  on  his  coming : 
he  stalked  up  the  aisle,  as  full  of  omen  as  any 
black  crow,  with  his  pale  seamed  face  and  his 
shaggy  black  beard,  and  his  arms  crossed  behind 
his  back  beneath  the  skirts  of  his  gown.  From 
his  high  seat  at  the  end  of  the  chancel  he  scowled 
on  the  whole  school  as  if  he  hated  it.  At  supper 
a  message  was  read  out.  The  school  would  as- 
semble by  classes  in  the  Big  Schoolroom  at  noon. 
Poor  old  Griff.  .  .  .  The  sergeant,  it  was  said,  had 
been  seen  binding  a  new  birch  in  the  porter's  lodge. 

It  was  all  very  romantic  and  thrilling.  Edwin, 
conscious  now  for  the  first  time  of  the  extreme 
foolhardiness  of  his  racecourse  adventure,  felt 
himself  a  greater  dog  than  ever.  And  then,  when 
the  stage  was  set,  and  the  audience  attuned  to  an 
atmosphere  of  tragedy  by  so  much  thunder- 
weather,  Griffin,  from  whom  the  glamour  of  the 
heroic  had  been  gradually  fading  in  the  shame  of 
his  captivity,  achieved  the  dramatic.  He  bolted. 
With  a  ladder  of  knotted  sheets  he  climbed  down 
the  waterspout  and  disappeared  into  open  country. 
Griffin  lived  somewhere  in  Kent.  In  half  a  day  he 
would  reach  home. 

For  Selby's  house  it  was  a  great  morning. 
Edwin,  in  spite  of  his  hatred  of  Griffin,  shared  in 
the  general  elation.  Such  private  feuds  were  small 


ioo         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

concerns  in  the  face  of  the  common  enemy.  Douglas 
was  flown  with  insolence. 

"I  knew  old  Griff  would  do  them,"  he  said.  "By 
God  .  .  .  that's  a  man  if  you  like.  It's  the  nastiest 
knock  old  Selby's  had  in  his  life.  Think  of  it  ... 
a  chap  with  a  weak  heart  like  old  Griff  shinning 
down  a  waterspout!" 

Edwin  wondered  if  the  meeting  in  the  Big 
Schoolroom  would  be  off,  or  whether,  perhaps,  it 
would  be  postponed  and  Griffin  hauled  back  from 
the  bosom  of  his  family  to  go  through  with  it. 

"You  silly  ass,"  said  Douglas.  "Of  course  they 
can't  fetch  him  back.  He's  done  them  brown." 

But  the  morning  went  on  without  any  alteration 
in  the  programme.  At  twelve  o'clock  the  solemn 
procession  began:  the  whole  black-coated  popula- 
tion of  St.  Luke's  filtering  through  narrow  corri- 
dors and  the  wide  folding  doors  into  the  big 
Schoolroom.  The  whole  business  was  impressive; 
for  nobody  spoke  and  no  sound  came  from  the 
crowd  but  the  drag  of  slowly-moving  feet  and  arms 
that  brushed  one  another.  They  were  like  a  flock 
of  sheep  driven  away  from  market  on  a  narrow 
road  between  dusty  hedges,  for  none  of  them  knew 
what  was  coming.  Rumour  was  busy  with  whispers. 

Griffin  had  been  found  in  a  ditch  with  his  leg 
broken  and  had  been  hauled  back  to  fulfil  his 
sentence.  Like  Momnouth,  Edwin  thought.  Griffin, 
in  company  with  the  pale  skivvy  from  "D"  had 
been  arrested  by  the  police  at  Waterloo.  Other 
rumours,  less  credible,  as,  for  instance,  that 
Cleaver,  meeting  a  jockey  friend  of  his  in  a  little 
pub  called  the  Grenadier  in  the  Downs  Koad,  had 


IMPURITY  101 

walked  into  a  taproom  full  of  School  House  bloods 
on  Sunday  morning.  Indeed,  these  were  strenuous 
days. 

The  school  settled  down.  The  Head,  lean,  crow- 
like,  flapped  the  wings  of  his  gown.  He  seemed  to 
find  it  difficult  to  make  a  beginning,  and  while  he 
waited  for  a  word  his  left  arm  twitched.  Then 
he  began.  It  was  obvious  that  his  pause  had  been 
nothing  more  than  a  rhetorical  trick  designed  to 
fix  the  attention  of  an  audience  already  thrilled 
by  uncertainty.  He  wasn't  at  a  loss  for  words  at 
all.  He  boomed,  he  ranted,  he  bellowed,  he  rolled 
his  "r's"  and  his  eyes.  The  masters,  sitting  at  their 
high  desks,  remained  discreet  and  rather  bored 
...  all  except  Mr.  Leeming,  to  whom  the  orator 
appeared  as  an  inspired  prophet  of  God.  For  the 
subject  of  his  harangue  was  Mr.  Leeming's  own: 
Impurity;  and  the  whole  meeting  the  immediate 
result  of  Mr.  Leeming's  investigations.  The  cur- 
tain had  gone  up  with  a  most  theatrical  flourish 
upon  the  Great  Smut  Row. 

The  essence  of  the  Head's  speech  was  a  general 
threat.  Certain  things  had  been  discovered;  cer- 
tain further  inquiries  were  to  be  made;  the  fate 
of  a  large  number  of  boys  lay  in  the  balance ;  more 
details  were  known,  in  all  probability,  than  any 
of  the  victims  suspected;  to  the  youngest  among 
them  he  made  a  special  appeal;  confession,  imme- 
diate confession,  would  be  th£  better  part  of  valour; 
he  looked  to  every  member  of  the  school  to  aid  him 
in  the  task,  the  sacred  duty,  of  purging  St.  Luke's 
of  this  abominable  thing.  Indeed  it  is  possible 
that  he  meant  what  he  said.  His  port  was  bad, 


102         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

and  he  knew  better  than  to  drink  it ;  but  the  heady 
vintage  that  he  brewed  from  sonorous  words 
knocked  him  over  every  time. 

The  meeting  dissolved  in  silence.  For  the  mo- 
ment the  school  was  impressed,  less  by  the  gravity 
of  the  charge  than  by  its  indefiniteness.  The  same 
evening  brought  tales  of  segregated  suspects,  of 
tearful  and  terrible  interviews  in  the  rooms  of 
housemasters,  of  prefects  suspended :  of  a  veritable 
reign  of  terror — lettres  de  cachet  and  the  rest  of 
it — in  Citizen  Leeming's  house.  "D"  dormitory 
and  the  others  in  charge  of  the  languid  Selby  suf- 
fered least.  When  evening  came  to  set  a  term 
to  rumours  only  two  were  missing — the  black 
Douglas,  and  an  insignificant  inky  creature  of  the 
name  of  Hearn,  whom  the  threats  of  the  head- 
master had  driven  to  some  grubby  confession.  An 
atmosphere  of  immense  relief  fell  upon  the  awed 
dormitory  and  found  vent  in  a  memorable  "rag." 

But  Edwin  did  not  sleep.  There  was  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  have  slept ;  but  he  couldn't  help 
feeling,  against  reason,  that  in  some  way  he  might 
be  dragged  into  the  toils  of  vengeance;  that  some 
peculiar  combination  of  circumstances  might  impli- 
cate him  in  the  business,  even  though  he  had  never 
had  anything  to  do  with  it.  Somehow  appearances 
might  be  against  him.  In  particular  he  became 
suspicious  of  Mr.  Leeming's  attentions  to  him  in 
the  past.  He  imagined  that  the  wily  creature  had 
suspected  him,  and  tried,  for  that  reason,  to  find 
a  way  into  his  confidence.  What  other  explana- 
tion could  there  be?  His  avoidance  of  Mr.  Leem- 


IMPURITY  103 

ing  could  only  have  increased  the  suspicion.  Plain- 
ly, he  was  done  for. 

He  remembered,  with  a  perilous  clearness,  words 
that  had  passed  between  them  to  which  he  had 
given  no  thought.  Now  they  appeared  terribly 
significant.  "You  and  Ingleby  are  great  friends, 
Widdup,"  Leeming  had  said  only  a  few  days  before. 
"Quite  inseparable.  I've  often  seen  you  walking 
up  and  down  the.  quad  at  night.  I  wonder  what 
you  have  in  common,  eh?"  Now  Edwin  knew  why 
he  wondered.  And  Widdup,  like  a  damned  fool, 
had  said  that  they  slept  alongside  each  other.  Sup- 
posing old  Leeming  imagined.  ...  It  was  too  bad. 
He  lay  there  staring  at  the  rafters  and  wondering 
what  could  be  done.  He  would  like  to  write  to 
his  mother  about  it.  But  a  man  couldn't  write  to 
his  mother  about  a  thing  like  that.  And  his  father 
wouldn't  understand.  In  the  end  he  determined 
that  the  only  thing  he  could  possibly  do  was  to  go 
and  see  Leeming  next  day  and  assure  him  that 
there  was  nothing .  wrong  with  their  friendship. 
"And  then,"  he  thought,  "the  old  beast  won't  be- 
lieve me.  He'll  think  that  I've  gone  to  him  because 
I  have  a  guilty  conscience,  and  he'll  suspect  me 
more  than  ever.  He'll  go  and  make  all  sorts  of 
inquiries  and  something  will  come  out  that  will  be 
difficult  to  explain."  How  could  anything  come 
out  when  there  wasn't  anything  wrong?  He  could 
not  give  a  reasonable  answer  to  this  question,  and 
yet  he  was  afraid.  From  this  spiritual  purgatory 
of  his  own  making  he  passed  into  an  uneasy  sleep. 

Next  morning,  in  the  middle  of  early  school,  the 


104         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

sergeant  entered  with  a  message  for  Mr.  Cleaver, 
and  waited  while  the  master  read  it. 

"Ingleby,"  he  said  at  last,  "Mr.  Selby  wants  to 
speak  to  you.  You  had  better  go  at  once." 

Edwin  packed  up  his  books  with  trembling 
hands.  He  went  very  white.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  form  were  on  him.  They 
were  thinking,  "Hallo,  here's  another  of  them. 
Ingleby!  Who  would  have  thought  it?"  He  heard 
the  footsteps  of  the  sergeant  go  echoing  down  the 
corridor  as  steadily  and  implacably  as  the  fate  that 
was  overtaking  him.  He  only  wanted  to  get  it  over. 
As  soon  as  he  was  out  of  the  classroom  he  ran,  for 
every  moment  of  uncertainty  was  torture  to  him. 
He  ran  across  the  quad  and  climbed  the  stairs, 
breathless,  to  the  low  room  still  steeped  in  stale 
honeydew,  where  his  life  at  St.  Luke's  had  begun 
and  must  now  so  abruptly  end.  Mr.  Selby  sat  at 
his  desk  waiting  for  him.  When  Edwin  entered 
the  room  he  looked  suddenly  embarrassed  and 
fingered  an  envelope  on  his  desk. 

"Ingleby,  I  sent  for  you  urgently  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"It  probably  came  as  a  shock  to  you  ...  or  per- 
haps you  were  prepared?" 

"No,  sir." 

"Then  you  must  pull  yourself  together.  You 
can't  guess  what  it  is?" 

"No,  sir."  .  .  .  But  he  could.  It  came  to  him 
suddenly,  huge  and  .annihilating,  swamping  in  the 
space  of  a  second  all  the  uneasiness  and  terror  that 
had  shadowed  him  in  the  night.  Those  things  were 
nothing  .  .  .  nothing. 


IMPURITY  105 

"Oh,  sir  ...  my  mother  .  .  ." 

"Yes  .  .  .  It's  your  mother,  Ingleby.  I'm  sorry 
to  be  the  bearer  of  bad  news.  Very  sorry.  .  .  ." 

"Tell  me,  sir.  She's  dead.  Oh  ...  she's 
dead  .  .  .  ?" 

Mr.  Selby  unfolded  the  telegram  although  he  al- 
ready knew  its  contents. 

"No.  It's  not  so  bad  as  that.  But  she's  ill  ... 
very  ill  .  .  ." 

"I  knew.  .  .  .  The  minute  you  spoke  I  knew, 
sir.  .  .  ." 

"You  had  better  catch  the  eight  o'clock  train 
at  the  Downs  station.  You  need  only  take  your 
little  bag.  You  can  get  it  from  the  matron.7' 

"Yes,  sir.  .  .  ." 

"Have  you  any  money?"  Mr.  Selby  almost 
smiled  to  see  him  so  eager  to  go. 

"No,  sir.  .  .  .  Only  about  eightpence." 

"You  can't  go  without  money,  you  know.  Here's 
a  sovereign.  Now,  cheer  up,  there's  a  good  fellow. 
Cheer  up!"  He  smiled  wanly,  and  Edwin  burst 
into  tears.  Mr.  Selby  laid  an  awkward  hand  on 
his  shoulder.  It  was  very  decent  of  him,  Edwin 
thought,  as  he  stood  with  his  fists  in  his  eyes,  one 
of  them  clutching  the  sovereign  that  Selby  had 
given  him. 

"Thank  you,  sir  ...  but  it's  awful,  it's 
awful.  .  .  ." 

"Of  course,  of  course.  .  .  ." 

He  shepherded  Edwin  out  of  the  room.  When 
the  boy  had  gone,  Mr.  Selby,  an  unemotional  man, 
tore  the  telegram  into  small  pieces  and  placed 
them,  with  a  confirmed  bachelor's  tidiness,  in  the 


io6        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

waste-paper  basket.  Then  lie  lit  a  pipe  of  honey- 
dew;  and  the  blue  smoke  from  the  bowl  together 
with  the  brown  smoke  that  he  expelled  from  his 
nostrils  shone  cheerily  in  the  morning  sun  that 
beat  through  the  latticed  window  on  to  a  woman's 
photograph  standing  on  the  desk  in  front  of  him. 
For  a  moment  he  gazed  at  the  faded  image.  He 
had  not  thought  of  her  for  years. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOMEWARDS 

IN  a  morning  air  of  miraculous  freshness  Edwin 
left  the  quad  by  the  iron  gates  on  the  eastern 
side.  The  square  was  quite  empty,  for  all  its  usual 
inhabitants  were  now  in  early  school.  He  noticed 
an  unusual  aspect  of  space  and  cleanliness.  He 
could  not  remember  ever  having  seen  it  empty  be- 
fore. He  noticed  the  tuck-shop  in  the  corner  by 
the  swimming-bath.  This,  too,  was  closed,  and  the 
windows  were  heavily  shuttered.  It  was  a  small 
thing,  but  it  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  people 
put  up  their  shutters  or  pulled  down  their  blinds 
when  some  one  lay  dead  in  a  house.  It  seemed  to 
him  like  a  sort  of  omen.  He  said  to  himself,  "I 
must  think  of  something  else  ...  I  must  think  of 
something  else.  I  can't  bear  it."  The  only  other 
time  when  he  had  ever  thought  of  death  had  been 
a  single  moment  a  week  or  so  before  when  his 
mother  had  written  about  her  plan  of  a  visit  to 
Switzerland.  And  then  the  thought  had  been  no 
more  than  an  indefinite  shadow,  too  remote  to  be 
threatening.  Now  it  was  different.  The  threat 
was  ponderable  and  vast.  "Death  ...  I  mustn't 
think  of  it.  I  must  think  of  something  else." 
He  had  to  think  of  something  else;  for  by  the 

107 


io8         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

time  the  gate  clanged  behind  him  the  clock  in  the 
tower  struck  the  quarter,  and  he  knew  that  he  had 
barely  time  to  catch  his  train.  With  his  bag  in 
his  hand  he  started  running  up  the  road  between 
the  tufted  grassy  banks;  past  the  scene  of  his  last 
adventure,  the  oak  paling  beside  the  nightingale's 
spinney,  past  the  last  of  the  new  villas,  and  so,  on 
to  the  open  downs.  It  was  a  strange  adventure 
for  him  to  reach  them  so  early  in  the  morning. 
Their  turf  was  silvered  still  with  a  fine  dew  that 
made  it  even  paler  than  a  chalk  down  should  be. 
Fold  beyond  beautiful  fold  they  stretched  before 
him.  The  woody  belts  of  beech  and  pine  lay  veiled 
in  milky  mist,  and  the  air  which  moved  to  meet  him, 
as  it  seemed,  over  that  expanse  of  breathing  grass, 
was  of  an  intoxicating  coolness  and  sweetness 
which  went  to  his  head  and  made  him  want  to  shout 
or  sing.  The  spring  of  a  summer  morning  in  the 
spring  of  life !  It  was  all  wrong.  Surely  no  awful 
devastation  of  death  could  overshadow  such  an 
ecstasy  of  physical  happiness?  He  refused  to  be- 
lieve it.  It  was  all  fantastic  nonsense.  Of  course 
she  wasn't  dead.  Your  mother  couldn't  die  without 
your  feeling  it.  ... 

At  the  station  he  had  five  minutes  to  spare.  He 
changed  his  sovereign,  and  was  relieved  to  be  rid 
of  the  responsibility  of  one  coin,  and  to  fill  his 
pocket  with  silver.  There  were  several  coppers 
in  the  change,  and  these  he  placed  in  a  penny-in- 
the-slot  machine,  extracting  several  metallic  ingots 
of  chocolate  cream.  He  was  ready  for  these  at 
once,  for  his  only  breakfast  had  been  a  hurried 
cup  of  tea  and  a  slice  of  bread  and  butter  in  the 


HOMEWARDS  109 

matron's  room.  The  train  jolted  out  of  the  station, 
and  soon  he  was  travelling  eastward  with  the  high 
water-tower  of  St.  Luke's  dipping  gradually  be- 
neath a  long  horizon. 

The  morning  grew  more  beautiful.  In  some 
strange  way  its  beauty  seemed  to  have  got  into  his 
blood;  for  he  tingled  with  a  kind  of  mild  ecstasy 
which  he  couldn't  help  feeling  unsuitable — almost 
irreverent,  to  the  tragic  occasion.  There  was  ad- 
venture in  it  and  the  added  charm  of  the  unex- 
pected. He  was  going  home.  Surely  it  was  reason- 
able enough  to  be  excited  at  such  a  prospect  as  that, 
to  smell  the  fine  summer  scents  that  were  so  dif- 
ferent in  a  midland  shire;  to  see  the  gorse  ablaze 
on  Pen  Beacon  and  Uffdown  and  the  green  glades 
of  the  old  Mercian  wood.  Of  course  it  was  always 
wonderful  to  be  going  home. 

He  remembered  other  homecomings  from  St. 
Luke's;  the  first,  and  best  of  all,  when,  on  a  De- 
cember morning  they  had  crowded  into  the  house- 
master's room  where  Mr.  Selby  sat  in  his  dressing- 
gown,  with  a  gaslight  flaring,  handing  out  the  little 
paper  packets  of  travelling  money;  how  the  damp 
platform  at  the  station  had  been  crowded  with 
human  happiness  and  such  a  holiday  spirit  of  inde- 
pendence that  Griffin  and  Douglas  had  lighted 
cigarettes  while  they  waited  for  the  train.  That 
was  the  town  station.  He  reflected  that  he  had 
only  once  before  been  to  the  Downs,  where  the  train 
service,  except  on  race  days,  was  not  so  good ;  that 
had  been  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to  St. 
Luke's  for  the  scholarship  exam.  He  had  come 
down  in  an  Eton  suit,  fortunately  correct,  and  an 


I  io         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

unfortunate  topper  that  he  would  have  given  his 
life  to  hide  when  he  found  that  they  were  not  worn. 
And  his  mother  had  come  down  with  him.  At  the 
thought  of  her  the  old  numbing  dread  fell  upon 
his  heart.  Perhaps  this  was  the  very  carriage  in 
which  they  had  travelled.  He  remembered  the 
journey  so  well :  how  she  had  sat  in  the  right-hand 
corner,  with  her  face  to  the  engine,  wearing  a  tail- 
or-made grey  coat  and  skirt,  a  velvet  hat  and  a  veil. 
He  had  been  looking  at  her  rather  critically,  for  he 
was  anxious  that  she  should  seem  what  she  was 
• — the  most  beautiful  creature  in  the  world.  And 
when  he  was  looking  at  her  with  this  in  his  mind 
she  had  smiled  at  him,  for  no  other  reason  in  the 
world  probably  but  that  she  loved  him;  and  with 
that  smile  he  had  been  satisfied  that  she  really 
was  beautiful.  And  he  had  noticed  how  lovely 
her  hands  were  when  she  took  her  gloves  off.  .  .  . 
Now,  the  memory  of  the  moment  made  him  want 
to  cry,  just  as  the  beauty  of  the  morning  made 
him  full  of  exultation.  It  was  a  most  perilous 
mixture  of  emotions. 

By  this  time  the  region  of  downs  had  been  left 
far  behind.  They  were  gliding,  more  smoothly,  it 
seemed,  through  the  heavily-wooded  park  country 
of  the  home  counties.  Stations  became  more  fre- 
quent, and  the  train  began  to  fill  with  business  peo- 
ple hurrying  to  London  for  their  morning's  work. 
They  settled  themselves  in  their  carriages  as 
though  they  were  confident  that  their  seats  had 
been  reserved  for  them.  They  were  all  rather  care- 
fully, rather  shabbily  dressed:  the  cuffs  of  their 
coats  were  shiny,  and  the  cuffs  of  their  shirts 


HOMEWARDS  in 

fringed,  and  one  of  them,  a  gentleman  with  a  top- 
hat  half-covered  by  a  mourning-band,  wore  cuff- 
covers  of  white  paper.  They  all  read  their  morn- 
ing papers  and  rarely  spoke;  but  when  they  did 
speak  to  each  other  they  used  an  almost  formal 
respect  in  their  addresses  which  implied  that  they 
were  all  respectable,  God-fearing  people  with  re- 
sponsibilities and  semi-detached  houses.  Edwin 
they  ignored — not  so  much  as  a  wilful  intrusion  as 
an  unfortunate  accident.  He  began  to  feel  ashamed 
that,  by  starting  from  the  terminus,  he  had  occu- 
pied a  corner  seat  to  which  the  gentleman  with 
the  paper  cuffs  had  an  inalienable  right. 

In  a  little  while  the  villas  from  which  this  popu- 
lation had  emerged  began  to  creep  closer  to  the 
track,  and  by  the  seventh  station  their  backs  were 
crowding  close  to  the  embankment  with  long,  nar- 
row gardens  in  which  the  crimson  rambler  rose 
seemed  to  have  established  itself  like  a  weed.  The 
houses,  too,  or  rather  the  backs  of  them,  grew  more 
uniform,  being  all  built  with  bricks  of  an  unhealthy 
yellow  or  putty  colour.  Soon  there  were  no  more 
buildings  semi-detached.  The  endless  rows  seemed 
to  be  suffering  some  process  of  squeezing  or  con- 
striction that  made  them  coalesce  and  edged  them 
closer  and  closer  to  the  railway  line.  Soon  the 
gardens  grew  so  small  that  there  was  no  room  in 
them  for  green  things,  only  for  a  patch  of  black 
earth  occupied  by  lean  cats,  and  posts  connected 
by  untidy  pieces  of  rope  on  which  torn  laundry 
was  hung  out  to  collect  the  smuts  or  flap  drearily 
in  a  night  of  drizzle.  Then  the  gardens  went  alto- 
gether ;  and  the  beautiful  and  natural  love  of  green 


ii2         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

things  showed  itself  in  sodden  window-boxes  full 
of  languishing  geranium  cuttings  or  mignonette. 
The  very  atmosphere  seemed  to  have  been  subjected 
to  the  increasing  squeeze;  for  the  mild  air  of  the 
downs  had  here  a  yellow  tinge  as  though  it  were 
being  curdled.  To  complete  the  process  the  train 
plunged,  at  last,  into  a  sulphurous  tunnel,  emerg- 
ing amid  acrid  fumes  in  a  sort  of  underground 
vault  where  the  door  was  opened  by  a  ticket-col- 
lector with  a  red  tie,  tired  already,  who  shouted 
"Tickets,  please." 

None  of  the  respectable  suburban  gentlemen 
took  any  notice  of  him,  for  by  purchasing  season 
tickets  they  had  rendered  themselves  immune  from 
his  attentions ;  but  he  glared  at  Edwin,  and  Edwin 
passed  him  his  ticket,  which  was  handed  on  as  if  it 
were  a  curiosity  and  a  rather  vulgar  possession  by 
the  gentlemen  on  his  side  of  the  compartment.  The 
door  was  slammed.  The  man  with  the  top-hat 
placed  it  carefully  on  his  head  and  adjusted  the 
paper  cuffs.  Others  folded  their  morning  papers 
and  put  them  in  their  pockets.  One,  apparently 
recognizing  a  friend  who  was  sitting  opposite  to 
him,  for  the  first  time,  said  "Good-morning,"  and 
the  train  passed  amid  thunderous  echoes  under  the 
arch  and  into  Victoria  Station.  All  his  fellow-pas- 
sengers were  adepts  at  evacuation,  and  before  he 
knew  where  he  was  Edwin  was  alone  in  the  car- 
riage. 

He  was  very  lonely  and  yet,  somehow,  a  little 
important.  Usually,  at  term  end,  he  had  crossed 
London  with  Widdup,  whose  westward  train  also 
started  from  Paddington.  He  hailed  a  hansom, 


HOMEWARDS  113 

and  one  that  was  worthy  of  its  name:  a  shining 
chariot,  all  coach-builders'  varnish,  with  yellow 
wheels  and  polished  brass  door-handles  and  clean 
straw  that  smelt  of  the  stable  on  its  floor.  The 
cabman  was  youngish,  mahogany-complexioned, 
and  ready  to  be  facetious.  He  called  Edwin  "My 
lord,"  and  Edwin  hardly  knew  whether  to  treat 
him  seriously  or  not.  "Geawing  to  the  races,  my 
lord?"  he  said.  The  Lord  knew  Edwin  had  had 
enough  of  races  for  a  bit.  He  said  "Paddington." 
"Ascot  or  Newbury?"  said  the  cabby,  climbing  to 
his  seat. 

It  was  a  great  moment.  The  movement  was  all 
so  swift  and  luxurious,  the  hansom  so  delicately 
sprung  that  it  swayed  gently  with  the  horse's  mo- 
tion. The  polished  lamps  on  either  side  were  filled 
with  wedding  rosettes.  Inside  on  either  hand  were 
oblong  mirrors  in  which  Edwin  could  almost  see 
his  own  profile:  a  subject  of  endless  curiosity. 
There  was  even  a  little  brass  receptacle  for  cigar- 
ash.  A  Cunarder  of  a  cab!  The  cabby  whistled 
"Little  Dolly  Daydreams"  with  a  ravishing 
tremolo.  The  cab,  which  had  jolted  a  trifle  on  the 
setts  of  the  station-yard,  passed  among  a  flight  of 
feeding  pigeons  out  of  the  iron  gates  into  the  bowl- 
ing smoothness  of  the  Palace  Road.  My  word,  this 
was  life.  .  .  .  Life !  .  .  .  Perhaps  she  was  dead  al- 
ready. Oh,  why  should  a  day  like  this  be  marred? 

It  seemed  to  him,  after  a  moment's  thought,  that 
it  was  possible — even  if  it  were  wrong — to  be 
possessed  by  two  and  opposite  emotions  at  once. 
He  was  miserable  to  feel  an  alarm  which  wasn't 
exactly  definite  or  real,  and  yet  he  could  not  help 


114         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

enjoying  this  astounding  and  unforeseen  adventure. 
"If  I  do  feel  like  that,"  he  thought,  "it  can't  be 
exactly  wrong."  And  that  comforted  him. 

He  surrende  -ed  himself  to  the  joys  of  the  morn- 
ing. The  streets  were  so  wide  and  clean,  the  green 
fringe  of  the  park  so  pleasant:  through  the  rail- 
ings he  could  see  men  and  women  on  horseback 
taking  an  early  ride,  enjoying,  like  him,  the  cool- 
ness of  the  morning  air.  He  wondered  at  the  great 
white  stucco  houses  of  Park  Lane,  standing  back 
from  the  wide  pavement  with  an  air  of  pompous 
reticence.  Before  one  of  them,  remnant  of  a  sum- 
mer dance  the  night  before,  a  tented  portico, 
striped  with  red  and  white,  overstretched  the  pave- 
ment. Edwin  did  not  know  what  kind  of  people 
lived  in  these  houses,  but  in  the  light  of  this  morn- 
ing it  seemed  to  him  that  theirs  must  be  an  exist- 
ence of  fabulous  happiness,  all  clean  and  bright 
and  shining  as  the  morning  itself  or  the  rubber- 
tired  hansom,  spinning  along  with  its  yellow  spokes 
beside  the  neat  park  railings.  All  of  them  were 
surely  exalted,  splendid  creatures,  born  to  great 
names  and  a  clear-cut  way  of  life  without  the  least 
complication,  dowered  with  a  kind  of  instinctive 
physical  cleanliness. 

At  the  corner,  by  Marble  Arch,  the  hansom  cab, 
silent  but  for  its  jolly  jingling  bells,  nearly  ran  over 
an  old  gentleman  in  a  frock  coat  with  an  exquisite 
white  stock  and  a  noble  nose.  His  name  was  prob- 
ably Cohen ;  but  Edwin  thought  he  must  be  at  least 
an  Earl. 

Once  again  the  resorts  of  elegance  were  left  be- 
hind. The  hansom,  heaving  heavily,  was  checked 


HOMEWARDS  115 

on  the  slope  of  the  gradient  descending  to  the  de- 
parture platform  at  Paddington.  Opposite  the 
booking-office  it  stopped,  and  Edwin  was  released 
from  this  paradisaical  loosebox.  The  cabby,  wish- 
ing him  the  best  of  luck  at  Goodwood,  patted  his 
horse,  whom  he  had  christened  Jeddah,  and 
climbed  up  again  to  his  seat  whistling  divinely. 
Edwin  was  disgorged  upon  the  long  platform  at 
Paddington  that  rumbled  with  the  sound  of  many 
moving  trollies  below  a  faint  hiss  of  escaping 
steam,  and  smelt,  as  he  had  always  remembered 
it,  of  sulphur  mingled  with  axle  grease  and  the  pe- 
culiar odour  that  hangs  about  tin  milk-cans.  He 
was  thankful  to  be  free  of  it,  sitting  in  the  corner 
of  a  third-class  carriage  opposite  a  stout  woman 
with  eyes  that  looked  as  if  she  had  been  crying  all 
night,  and  a  heavy  black  veil,  whose  hat  was  sur- 
mounted by  coloured  photographs  of  the  Memorial 
Theatre  at  Stratford  and  Brixham  Trawlers  wait- 
ing for  a  Breeze. 

This  train  ran  out  of  London  more  easily  than 
the  other  had  entered  it.  The  area  of  painful  con- 
striction seemed  more  narrow,  and  in  an  incredibly 
short  time  he  found  himself  gliding  along  the 
Thames  valley  with  the  ghostly  round  tower  of 
Windsor  Castle  on  his  left. 

At  Reading,  where  the  sidings  of  the  biscuit 
factory  reminded  him  of  teas  which  he  had 
"brewed"  with  Widdup,  the  woman  opposite  took 
out  a  crumpled  paper  bag,  and  began  to  eat  sand- 
wiches. She  lifted  her  veil  to  do  so,  and  the  process 
suddenly  proclaimed  her  human.  Edwin  saw  that 
she  wasn't,  as  he  had  imagined,  a  sombre,  mute-like 


i;6         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

creature,  but  a  woman  of  middle  age  with  a  com- 
fortable face  and  a  methodical  appetite. 

He  began  to  wonder  what  he  should  say  if  she 
offered  him  a  sandwich,  for  he  dreaded  the  idea  of 
accepting  anything  from  a  stranger,  and  at  the 
same  time  could  not  deny  that  he  was  awfully 
hungry,  for  the  chocolate  creams  that  he  had  ab- 
sorbed at  the  Downs  station  had  failed  to  dull  his 
normal  appetite.  This  emergency,  however,  never 
arose.  The  woman  in  black  worked  steadily 
through  her  meal,  and  when  she  had  finished  her 
packet  of  sandwiches  folded  the  paper  bag  tidily 
and  placed  it  in  a  wicker  travelling  basket,  from 
which  she  produced  one  of  those  flask-shaped 
bottles  in  which  spirits  are  sold  at  railways  sta- 
tions. From  this  she  took  a  prolonged  and  delicious 
gulp;  recorked  and  replaced  it,  smiled  to  herself, 
sighed,  and  lowered  her  portcullis  once  more. 

It  cheered  Edwin  to  think  that  she  wasn't  as 
inhuman  and  sinister  as  he  had  imagined;  and  in 
a  little  while  he  saw  beneath  her  veil  that  she  had 
closed  her  eyes  and  was  gradually  falling  asleep. 
The  sun,  meanwhile,  was  climbing  towards  the 
south,  and  the  railway  carriage  began  to  reflect 
the  summery  atmosphere  of  the  green  and  pleasant 
land  through  which  the  train  was  passing.  It 
made  golden  the  dust  on  the  window-pane  at  Ed- 
win's elbow  and  discovered  warm  colours  in  the 
pile  of  the  russet  cloth  with  which  the  carriage  was 
upholstered. 

It  was  a  country  of  green  woods  and  fields  of 
ripening  mowing-grass  from  which  the  sound  of  a 
machine  could  sometimes  be  heard  above  the 


HOMEWARDS  117 

rumble  of  the  train.  It  all  seemed  extraordinarily 
peaceful.  A  cuckoo  passed  in  level  flight  from  one 
of  the  hedgerow  elms  to  the  dark  edge  of  a  wood. 
In  the  heart  of  the  wood  itself  a  straight  green 
clearing  appeared.  It  reminded  Edwin  of  the  green 
roads  that  pierced  the  woods  below  Uffdown,  and 
he  remembered,  poignantly,  the  walk  with  his 
mother  in  the  Easter  holidays  when  they  had 
reached  the  crown  of  the  hills  at  sunset.  Some 
day,  they  had  said,  they  would  make  that  journey 
again.  Some  day  .  .  .  perhaps  never.  Was  it  quite 
impossible  to  get  away  from  that  threatening 
shadow?  But  even  while  he  was  thinking  how  un- 
reasonable and  how  cruel  the  whole  business  was, 
another  sight  fell  upon  his  eyes  and  filled  him  with 
a  new  and  strange  excitement:  a  small  cluster  of 
spires  set  in  a  city  of  pale  smoke,  and  one  com- 
manding dome.  He  held  his  breath.  He  knew  that 
it  was  Oxford.  * 

This,  then,  was  the  city  of  his  dreams.  Here,  in 
a  little  while,  he  would  find  himself  living  the 
new  life  of  leisure  and  spaciousness  and  culture 
which  had  become  his  chief  ambition.  This  was 
his  Mecca:  "That  lovely  city  with  her  dreaming 
spires,"  he  whispered  to  himself.  It  was  indeed 
merciful  that  the  vision  of  his  second  dream  should 
come  to  cheer  him  when  the  first  became  so  peril- 
ously near  extinction. 

Even  when  the  train  began  to  slow  down  among 
red-brick  suburbs  of  an  appalling  ugliness  the 
mood  of  excitement  had  not  faded.  The  train 
ran  in  smoothly,  and  the  woman  in  black  awoke 
and  blew  her  nose.  Edwin,  looking  out  of  the  car- 


ii8         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

riage  window,  saw  a  congregation  of  demigods  in 
grey  flannel  trousers,  celestial  socks,  and  tweed 
Norfolk  coats  lounging  with  a  grace  that  was 
Olympian  upon  the  platform.  All  of  them,  he 
thought,  were  supremely  happy.  In  this  holy  city 
happiness  had  her  dwelling.  One  of  them — his 
back  was  turned  to  Edwin — reminded  him  of  Lay- 
ton,  the  old  head  of  the  house.  He  remembered 
with  a  thrill,  that  Layton,  who  had  won  a  scholar- 
ship at  New  College,  was  now  in  Oxford.  Of  course 
it  must  be  he.  Very  excited,  Edwin  slipped  out  of 
the  carriage  and  ran  after  him.  "Layton!"  he 
called.  And  the  young  man  looked  round.  "What 
do  you  want?"  he  said.  It  wasn't  Layton  at  all. 
Edwin  apologised.  "I'm  awfully  sorry.  I  thought 
you  were  a  chap  I  knew." 

The  porters  were  slamming  the  doors  and  he 
only  just  managed  to  scramble  into  his  seat  before 
the  train  started.  The  woman  in  black  spoke  for 
the  first  time.  She  had  a  soothing  voice,  with  a 
west-country  burr  that  reminded  him  of  his  father 
and  Widdup.  "I  thought  you  were  going  to  be 
left  behind,"  she  said.  "I  saw  your  bag  was 
labelled  North  Bromwich." 

Shouts  were  heard  on  the  platform.  "North 
Bromwich  next  stop.  .  .  .  Next  stop  North  Brom- 
wich .  .  ."  Edwin  sat  down  panting,  and  the  train 
moved  off.  "Next  stop  North  Bromwich.  .  .  ." 
The  words  echoed  in  his  brain,  and  chilled  him.  He 
didn't  want  to  look  back  to  see  the  last  of  Oxford. 
Next  stop  North  Bromwich.  At  North  Bromwich 
he  would  know  the  worst.  Swiftly,  inevitably,  the 


HOMEWARDS  119 

train  was  carrying  him  towards  it.  The  tragedy 
had  to  be  faced. 

He  was  seized  with  a  sudden  inconsolable  fear  of 
desolation.  His  eyes  brimmed  with  tears  so  that 
the  coloured  landscape  could  not  be  seen  any 
longer.  The  tears  gathered  and  fell.  He  could 
feel  them  trickling  down  his  cheeks,  and  when  he 
knew  that  he  could  not  hold  them  back  any  longer 
the  strain  of  his  emotion  was  too  strong  for  him, 
and,  against  his  will,  he  sobbed  aloud,  burying  his 
face  in  his  hands. 

The  woman  in  black,  hearing  the  sobs,  raised  her 
veil  and  looked  at  him. 

"What  is  it,  my  dear?"  she  said. 

"Oh,  nothing  .  .  .  nothing." 

"Folks  don't  cry  about  nothing.  .  .  ." 

She  spoke  quite  kindly,  and  her  kindness  was 
too  much  for  him.  It  gave  him  quite  an  unaccount- 
able feeling  of  relief  to  speak  about  it. 

"It's  .  .  .  it's  my  mother,"  he  said. 

"There  now.  ...  Is  it  really?  That's  bad  for 
'ee.  When  did  she  pass  away?" 

"She  isn't  dead.  I  ...  I  hope  she  isn't.  But 
she's  awfully  ill." 

"Don't  cry  now,  boy.  While  there's  life  there's 
hope.  I  always  tells  them  that." 

"Who  do  you  tell  that  to?" 

The  black  woman  laughed.  "Who  do  I  tell 
that  to?  Ha  .  .  .  that's  a  good  'un.  Why,  dearie, 
my  patients,  of  course." 

"I  don't  understand.  .  .  .  What  sort  of  pa- 
tients?" 


120         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Well,  Mr.  Inquisitive,  if  you  must  know,  I'm  a 
monthly  nurse." 

Still  Edwin  did  not  understand.     He  asked, — 

"Do  many  of  them  die?" 

"Why,  bless  my  heart,  no.  It's  more  a  matter 
of  births  than  deaths.  Not  that  I  haven't  a'  seen 
deaths.  And  laid  them  out.  But  I'll  tell  you  some- 
thing. It's  my  belief  that  they  all  die  happy.  And 
though  it's  hard  on  a  young  boy  like  you  to  lose 
his  best  friend — that's  his  mother — it's  my  belief 
that  death  is  a  happy  release.  Yes,  a  happy  re- 
lease. I  always  tell  them  that.  Especially  after  a 
long  illness.  I  wonder,  has  your  dear  mother  been 
ill  for  a  long  time?" 

Edwin  thought.    "Yes." 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  black  woman  with  relish, 
"Perhaps  you  could  give  me  some  idea  of  what  she 
was  suffering  from  and  then  I  could  tell  you  near 
enough." 

"I  think,"  said  Edwin,  "it  was  diabetes." 

"Diabetes  .  .  .  think  of  that!  I've  a'  had  sev- 
eral with  that.  It's  a  bad  complaint.  Very.  I'm 
afraid  I  can't  give  you  the  hopes  that  I'd  like  to." 

"But  don't  they  ever  get  better?"  Edwin  asked 
in  agony.  "I  expect  they  do  sometimes,  don't 
they?" 

"It  all  goes  to  sugar,"  said  the  woman  enigmati- 
cally. "I  ought  to  know  for  I've  had  them.  Yes 
.  .  ^  I've  had  them.  But  while  there's  life  there's 
hope.  That's  what  I  always  say.  And  a  boy's  best 
friend  is  his  mother.  You  must  never  forget  her." 

"I  couldn't  forget  her.  Oh,  I  wish  you'd  never 
told  me,"  said  Edwin,  sobbing  once  more. 


HOMEWARDS  ,         121 

"Now,  dearie,  don't  take  on  so.  You  mustn't 
take  on  so.  You  must  take  what  God  gives  you. 
I  always  tell  them  that." 

"I  won't  take  what  God  gives  me,"  he  cried.  "I 
won't.  I  can't  bear  to  lose  her." 

"Ssh.  .  .  .  You  mustn't  say  that.  It's  wicked  to 
say  that ;  I  should  be  frightened  to  be  struck  dead 
myself  if  I  said  a  thing  like  that  in  God's  hear- 
ing." 

She  looked  nervously  at  the  luggage  rack  above 
her  head  as  if  she  expected  to  find  the  Almighty 
in  hiding  there.  Edwin  followed  the  direction  of 
her  glance  and  read:  "This  rack  is  provided  for 
light  articles  only  it  must  not  be  used  for  heavy 
luggage"  He  wondered  inconsequently,  whether 
the  stop,  which  was  missing,  should  come  before  or 
after  the  word  "only." 

"You  must  cheer  up,  dearie,"  said  the  black 
woman  soothingly.  "While  there's  life  .  .  ." 

Edwin  wished  she  would  shut  up.  He  was  sorry 
that  she  had  ever  spoken,  and  yet  he  couldn't  quite 
suppress  a  desire  to  be  further  informed  on  certain 
technical  details  which  this  authority  had  at  her 
finger-tips.  "Is  it  a  painful  death?"  he  asked 
slowly,  wiping  away  the  last  of  his  tears. 

"Painful?  .  .  .  Well  .  .  .  not  to  say  painful. 
Not  as  painful  as  some.  Most  of  mine  passed  away 
in  their  sleep  like.  And  they  look  so  peaceful  and 
happy.  It's  a  great  consolation  to  their  friends. 
Just  like  a  doll,  they  look.  That's  better.  You 
mustn't  cry.  That's  a  brave  boy.  Upon  my  word, 
even  though  I'm  used  to  it,  it's  quite  upset  me  talk- 
ing to  you."  She  gave  a  little  laugh  and  dived  once 


122         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

more  for  the  bottle  of  spirits.  "This  wouldn't  be 
no  use  to  you,"  she  said,  as  she  took  a  swig. 

Edwin  shook  his  head. 

"Every  woman  has  a  mother's  feelings.  And  I 
know  what  they  go  through.  I  understand.  I  do. 
Now,  that's  right.  Cheer  up  and  be  a  good  lad. 
Hope  for  the  best.  That's  what  I  tell  them.  .  .  ." 

"This  rack  is  intended  for  light  articles  only. 
It  must  not  be  used  for  heavy  luggage.  This  rack 
is  intended  for  light  articles.  Only  it  must  not 
be  used  for  heavy  luggage.  While  there's  life 
there's  hope.  While  there's  life  there's  hope.  While 
there's  life  there's  hope." 

So,  in  the  pitiful  whirl  of  Edwin's  brain,  foolish 
words  re-echoed,  and  in  the  end  the  empty  phrase 
seemed  to  attach  itself  to  the  regular  beat  of  the 
train's  rhythm  as  the  wheels  rolled  over  the  joints 
in  the  rails.  Mesmerised  by  the  formula  he  only 
dimly  realised  that  they  were  now  roaring,  under 
a  sky  far  paler  and  less  blue,  towards  the  huge 
pall  of  yellowish  atmosphere  beneath  which  the 
black  country  sweltered. 

Soon  the  prim  small  gardens  told  that  fthey 
were  touching  the  tentacles  of  a  great  town.  A 
patch  of  desert  country,  scarred  with  forgotten 
workings  in  which  water  reflected  the  pale  sky,  and 
scattered  with  heaps  of  slag.  A  pair  of  conical  blast 
furnaces  standing  side  by  side  and  towering  above 
afche  black  factory  sheds  like  temples  of  some  savage 
religion,  as  indeed  they  were.  Gloomy  canal  wharfs, 
fronting  on  smoke-blackened  walls  where  leaky 
steampipes,  bound  with  asbestos,  hissed.  The  ex- 
haust of  a  single  small  engine,  puffing  regular  jets  of 


HOMEWARDS  123 

dazzling  white  steam,  seen  but  not  heard.  A  canal 
barge  painted  in  garish  colours,  swimming  in  yel- 
low water,  foul  with  alkali  refuse.  A  disused  fac- 
tory with  a  tall  chimney  on  which  the  words  Harris 
and  Co.,  Brass  Founders,  was  painted  in  vertical 
letters  which  the  mesmeric  eye  must  read.  An- 
other mile  of  black  desert,  pools,  and  slag  heaps, 
and  ragged  children  flying  kites.  Everywhere  a 
vast  debris  of  rusty  iron,  old  wheels,  corroded  boil- 
ers, tubes  writhen  and  tangled  as  if  they  had  been 
struck  by  lightning.  An  asphalt  school-yard  on  a 
slope,  with  a  tall,  gothic  school  and  children 
screaming  their  lungs  out,  but  silent  to  Edwin's 
ears.  Endless  mean  streets  of  dusky  brick  houses 
with  roofs  of  purple  slate  and  blue  brick  footpaths. 
Dust  and  an  acrid  smell  as  of  smoking  pit  heaps. 
More  houses,  and  above  them,  misty,  and  almost 
beautiful,  the  high  clock  tower  of  the  Art  Gallery. 
A  thunderous  tunnel.  .  .  .  The  clamour  of  the 
wheels  swelled  to  an  uproar.  "While  there's  life 
there's  hope.  While  there's  life  there's  hope."  Un- 
der the  gloom  of  the  great  glass  roof  the  train 
emerged. 

"Good-bye,  dearie,"  said  the  black  woman,  smil- 
ing. "I  hope  it's  not  as  bad  as  you  think.  You 
never  know.  Don't  forget  your  bag,  now." 

He  could  easily  have  done  so. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  DARK  HOUSE 


AUNT  LAURA  was  waiting  for  him  on  the  plat- 
form. It  was  a  very  strange  sensation.  Al- 
ways at  other  times  when  he  had  come  home  from 
St.  Luke's  his  mother  had  met  him  at  North  Brom- 
wich,  and  even  now  it  seemed  natural  to  look  for 
her,  to  pick  out  her  fragile  figure  from  all  the 
others  on  the  platform,  and  then  to  kiss  her  cool 
face  through  her  veil.  On  these  occasions  neither  of 
them  would  speak,  but  he  would  see  her  eyes  smil- 
ing and  full  of  love  looking  him  all  over,  drowning 
him  in  their  particular  kindness.  Aunt  Laura  was  a 
poor  substitute.  To-day  she  was  a  little  more  dif- 
fuse and  emotional  than  usual,  and  at  the  same 
time  curiously  kinder.  She  kissed  him — her  lips 
were  hot — and  he  felt  that  the  kiss  was  really  noth- 
ing more  than  an  attempt  to  conceal  an  entirely 
different  emotion  and  to  hide  her  eyes.  On  his 
cheek  her  lips  trembled.  He  dared  not  look  at  her 
for  he  was  afraid  that  in  her  eyes  he  would  be 
able  to  read  the  worst.  It  had  to  be  faced.  At 
last  he  managed  to  say, — 

"How  is  she?" 

And  above  the  roar  of  the  station  he  heard  an 

124 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  123 

uncertain  voice  answer.    "She's  very  ill,  Eddie  .  .  « 
very  ill  indeed." 

"Not  dead?  .  .  .  she's  not  dead?" 
."No,  no.  We  must  all  be  brave,  Eddie." 
"We  must  all  be  brave."  .  .  .  He  hated  to  hear 
her  talk  like  that.  What  had  she  to  be  brave 
about?  It  wasn't  her  mother  who  was  dying,  only 
her  sister.  A  sister  wasn't  like  a  mother.  It  was 
all  very  well  to  say  these  conventional  things.  He 
didn't  believe  she  really  meant  them.  She  could 
cry  her  eyes  out  before  he'd  believe  her,  however 
kind  she  might  try  to  be.  It  wasn't  any  good  her 
trying  to  be  kind  now.  She  hadn't  been  kind  to 
his  mother.  He  remembered  the  day  when  her  cal- 
lousness had  made  his  mother  cry.  He  couldn't 
pity  her  now;  he  couldn't  put  up  with  her  con- 
dolences ;  he  believed  he  hated  her.  He  would  hate 
any  one  in  the  world  who  had  given  his  mother  a 
moment's  pain.  She  was  so  little  and  beautiful  and 
perfect.  .  .  . 

And  yet,  when  he  sat  opposite  to  Aunt  Laura  in 
the  Halesby  train,  and  examined  her  more  closely, 
he  could  see  for  himself  that  the  strain  of  the  last 
few  days  had  somehow  chastened  her — she  seemed 
to  have  lost  some  of  her  florid  assurance,  and  her 
eyes  looked  as  if  she  had  been  crying.  She  even 
seemed  to  have  shrunk  a  little.  And  this  made 
matters  worse,  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  very 
thing  which  had  obliterated  what  he  most  disliked 
in  her  had  also  accentuated  the  family  likeness. 
All  the  time,  beneath  this  face,  which  he  distrusted, 
he  could  see  a  faint  and  tantalising  resemblance  to 
the  other  face  that  he  adored.  If  any  one  had  sug- 


'  126         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

i 

gested  to  him  that  Aunt  Laura  was  in  any  way  like 
his  mother,  he  would  have  denied  it  indignantly; 
but  the  likeness  was  there,  a  curious,  torturing 
likeness  of  feature.  He  didn't  know  then  what  in 
after  years  he  was  to  realise  time  after  time :  that 
grief  has  a  way  of  suppressing  individual  charac- 
teristics and  reducing  the  faces  of  a  whole  suffer- 
ing family  to  their  original  type  after  the  manner 
of  a  composite  photograph.  It  was  tantalising,  and 
so  harrowing  that  he  dared  not  look  at  her  any 
longer. 

At  Halesby  they  walked  up  from  the  station  to- 
gether almost  without  speaking.  The  little  house 
on  the  edge  of  the  country  wore  a  strangely  tragic 
air.  Downstairs  all  was  quiet.  After  the  big  echo- 
ing rooms  at  St.  Luke's  it  seemed  ridiculously  small. 
Nobody  inhabited  the  rooms,  and  the  soft  carpet 
created  a  curious  hushed  atmosphere  in  which  it 
seemed  sacrilege  to  speak  in  anything  but  a  whis- 
per. Aunt  Laura  took  off  her  hat  and  veil. 

"I'd  better  carry  my  bag  upstairs,"  said  Edwin. 
He  felt  somehow,  that  in  his  little  old  room  he 
could  be  happier.  He  could  even,  if  he  wanted  to, 
throw  himself  on  the  bed  and  give  way  to  the  tears 
which  were  bound  to  come. 

"No  .  .  .  you'd  better  wait  here,"  said  Aunt  Lau- 
ra. "Your  father  is  sleeping  in  your  room.  You 
see  it  wouldn't  do  for  him  to  be  in  hers.  He's  been 
there  for  three  nights.  And  I'm  in  the  spare  room. 
I  think  you're  going  to  sleep  over  at  Mrs.  Bar- 
row's." 

Edwin  flamed  with  jealousy.     What  was  Aunt 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  127 

Laura  doing  in  the  house?  She,  above  all  people, 
had  no  right  to  be  there. 

"But  I  could  sleep  on  the  sofa  in  the  drawing- 
room,"  he  said. 

"You  mustn't  make  difficulties,  Eddie.  It's  all 
arranged.  The  specialist  has  been  out  this  after- 
noon to  see  her  with  Dr.  Moorhouse.  He  may  be 
upstairs  now." 

"But  I  can't,  I  can't  be  so  far  away.  I  ought  to 
be  here.  She  would  like  me  to  be  here." 

"Eddie,  dear  ...  do  be  a  good  boy.  Here  comes 
your  father." 

And  his  father  came.  Strangely,  strangely  old 
and  worn  he  looked  in  the  shabby  alpaca  coat. 
Edwin  had  never  realised  that  he  could  be  so  pa- 
thetic. He  smiled  at  Edwin,  a  smile  that  was  un- 
utterably painful.  "Eddie  .  .  .  my  boy,"  he  said, 
and  kissed  him,  "I'm  glad  you've  come.  .  .  .  She 
was  anxious  for  you  to  come.  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  father.  .  .  ." 

"We  must  all  be  brave,  Eddie."  Again  that  ter- 
rible smile. 

"Father,  may  I  go  and  see  her  .  .  .  ?" 

"The  doctor  says  that  nobody  had  better  see  her 
to-night." 

"Yes,  Eddie,  we  must  obey  the  doctor's  orders, 
dear,"  said  Aunt  Laura. 

"But  you've  seen  her  .  .  .  you  saw  her  this 
morning,  didn't  you?" 

"That  was  different,"  said  Aunt  Laura.  "I  was 
up  all  night  with  her." 

"It  isn't  different,  is  it,  father?  Aunt  Laura's 
nothing  to  her.  .  .  ." 


128         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Eddie,  Eddie.  .  .  ."  Aunt  Laura  protested. 

"Father,  if  she  asked  for  me  she  ought  to  see 
me.  .  .  ." 

"She's  so  ill,  Eddie.  I'm  afraid  she  wouldn't 
know  you." 

"Oh,  I'm  sure  she  would.  .  .  ." 

"Edwin,  you  mustn't  worry  your  father;  there's 
a  good  boy." 

"Oh,  Aunt  Laura  .  .  ."  Then  fiercely,  "She's 
my  mother.  .  .  ." 

Edwin's  father  sighed  and  looked  away.  Aunt 
Laura,  with  a  business-like  change  of  tone  which 
implied  that  Edwin's  question  was  disposed  of, 
whispered  to  his  father,  "Is  she  still  sleeping?" 

"Yes.  .  .  .  The  doctor  says  it  isn't  really  sleep, 
it's  coma." 

Coma  ...  a  gloomy  and  terrible  word!  What 
did  it  mean?  Edwin  remembered  the  woman  in 
the  train.  "Most  of  them  pass  away  in  their  sleep 
like."  ' 

"I  think  I'll  go  and  lie  down  for  an  hour,"  said 
his  father. 

"Yes,  do,  John,"  said  Aunt  Laura  encouragingly. 
"You  need  it.  I'll  go  upstairs  myself  to  be  handy 
if  the  nurse  wants  anything." 

This  was  the  first  that  Edwin  had  heard  of  a 
nurse.  The  idea  inspired  him  with  awe.  His  father 
sighed  and  turned  to  go. 

"Father  .  .  .  can't  I  go  up,  only  for  a  minute?" 

Aunt  Laura,  who  had  taken  upon  herself  the  role 
of  protectress  and  manager  of  the  distressed  house- 
hold, intervened, — 

"Eddie,  you  mustn't  worry  your  father.     We're 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  129 

all  in  trouble,  and  you  mustn't  be  a  nuisance." 

His  father  went,  without  speaking. 

"Well,  when  can  I  see  her?"  Edwin  demanded. 

"To-morrow.  .  .  .  You  must  be  patient  like  the 
rest  of  us.  Now  I  must  go  upstairs.  You'll  be 
quiet,  won't  you?  Mrs.  Barrow  has  your  bedroom 
ready,  and  if  you  take  your  bag  over  she'll  give  you 
some  tea.  She  promised  to  look  after  you.  She 
was  most  kind.  Or,  if  you  like,  and  will  keep  very 
quiet,  you  can  stay  here  and  read." 

"I  didn't  come  home  to  sit  down  here  and  read. 
Why  did  they  send  for  me  to  come  if  they  won't 
let  me  see  her?  I  want  her.  .  .  ." 

"Hush  .  .  ."  said  Aunt  Laura,  with  an  air  of 
being  scandalised.  She  left  him,  closing  the  door 
with  exaggerated  quietness  behind  her,  leaving  him 
alone  in  the  room  that  had  once  witnessed  so  much 
happiness.  He  didn't  know  what  to  do.  Read? 
The  idea  was  ridiculous.  He  looked  at  the  familiar 
shelves,  on  which  he  knew  the  place  and  title  of 
every  book.  A  sense  of  the  room's  awful  emptiness 
oppressed  him,  for  everything  in  it  recalled  the 
memory  of  his  darling's  presence;  the  books  that 
they  had  read  together;  the  big  chair  in  which  he 
had  sat  cuddled  in  her  arms;  her  workbasket  on 
the  table  by  the  window;  and — terribly  pathetic — 
a  shopping  list  scribbled  on  the  back  of  an  enve- 
lope. He  couldn't  bear  to  be  alone  in  the  room 
with  so  many  inanimate  reminders;  and  while  he 
was  debating  where  he  should  go,  a  sudden  angry 
jealousy  flamed  up  in  his  heart  towards  the  other 
people  in  the  house:  his  father,  Aunt  Laura,  the 
doctor,  and  the  unknown  nurse  who  shared  the 


130         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

privilege  that  was  denied  him  and  didn't  realise  its 
value.  He  clenched  his  hands  and  cried  aloud: 
"We  belong  to  one  another.  .  .  .  She's  mine.  .  .  . 
She's  mine.  I  hate  them." 

He  opened  the  door  softly  and  stepped  into  the 
hall.  Scarcely  knowing  what  he  was  doing  he 
looked  into  the  drawing-room.  There  stood  the 
piano  with  a  sonata  of  Beethoven  upon  the  music- 
stand.  The  room  was  full  of  a  curious  penetrat- 
ing odour  which  came,  he  discovered,  from  a  big 
vase  full  of  pinks  that  had  faded  and  gone  yellow. 
Some  days  ago,  he  supposed,  his  mother  had  picked 
them.  Her  hands  ...  he  worshipped  her  hands. 
A  strange  and  uncontrollable  impulse  made  him 
bend  and  kiss  the  dead  flowers. 

But  the  atmosphere  of  that  room  was  if  anything 
more  cruel  than  the  other.  He  couldn't  stay  there. 
Once  more  he  found  himself  in  the  darkness  and 
quiet  of  the  hall.  The  house  had  ifever  been  so 
silent.  Only,  in  the  corner  an  oak  grandfather's 
clock  with  a  brass  face  engraved  with  the  name  of 
Carver,  Hay,  ticked  steadily.  In  the  silence  he 
heard  his  own  heart  beating  far  faster  than  the 
clock. 

Scarcely  knowing  what  he  was  doing  he  climbed 
upstairs  and  crept  quietly  to  the  door  of  the  room 
where  his  mother  was  lying.  He  knelt  on  the  mat 
outside  the  door  and  listened.  Inside  the  room 
there  was  no  sound ;  not  even  a  sound  of  breathing. 
If  only  he  dared  open  the  door.  ...  If  only  he 
could  see  her  for  a  second  she  might  smile  at  him 
and  he  would  be  satisfied.  He  was  thankful  to 
find  that  the  mere  fact  of  being  nearer  to  her  made 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  .  131 

him  feel  more  happy.  For  a  long  time  he  knelt 
there,  and  then,  hearing  a  slight  noise  in  his  own 
room,  where  his  father  was  supposed  to  be  resting, 
he  stole  downstairs  again,  a  little  comforted, 
opened  the  front  door  and  went  out  into  the  garden. 


Mrs.  Barrow,  at  whose  house  it  had  been  ar- 
ranged that  Edwin  should  put  up  for  the  night, 
was  the  Ingleby's  nearest  neighbour  and  their  land- 
lady. The  gardens  of  the  two  houses  stood  back 
to  back  with  a  high  wall  between,  and  the  relations 
of  the  neighbours  had  always  been  so  friendly  that 
the  little  door  in  the  wall  was  never  locked,  even 
though  it  was  so  seldom  used  that  tendrils  of  ivy 
had  attached  themselves  to  the  woodwork,  form- 
ing a  kind  of  natural  hinge. 

On  the  Inglebys'  side  of  the  wall  lay  a  modern 
well-kept  garden,  not  more  than  twenty  years  old. 
Edwin's  mother  had  a  passion  for  flowers,  and  his 
father  had  made  the  gratification  of  her  pleasure 
his  favourite  hobby,  so  that  Edwin's  earliest  memo- 
ries of  both  of  them  were  associated  with  the  gath- 
ering of  fruits  and  blooms,  with  the  rich  odours 
of  summer,  or,  above  all,  the  smell  of  newly-turned 
earth.  This  summer  Mr.  Ingleby  had  planted  the 
long  bed  that  stretched  along  the  side  of  the  house 
towards  the  door  in  Mrs.  Barrow's  wall  with  masses 
of  delicately-coloured  stocks.  Though  the  form  of 
these  flowers  was  not  particularly  beautiful  their 
scent  rose  to  meet  him  in  a  hot  wave  of  overpower- 
ing sweetness.  He  remembered  a  letter  in  which 


132         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

his  mother  had  told  him  how  wonderful  they  were. 
Everything  reminded  him  of  her.  .  .  . 

He  passed  through  the  door  in  the  wall  and  en- 
tered another  world. 

Everything  connected  with  Mrs.  Barrow  was  in 
character.  She  was  a  little  old  woman,  the  widow 
of  a  small  manufacturer  who  had  set  his  mark  upon 
the  countryside  by  the  erection  of.  a  chimney  stack 
taller  than  any  other  in  the  district,  so  tall  that 
even  from  the  summit  of  Pen  Beacon  it  made  a 
landmark  more  prominent  than  the  slender  spire 
of  Halesby  church.  In  Edwin's  eyes  its  presence 
was  so  familiar  that  he  had  almost  become  fond  of 
it.  Many  and  many  times  on  windy  days  he  had 
watched  the  immense  structure  swaying  gently  as 
a  reed  in  a  summer  breeze.  Under  the  shadow  of 
Mr.  Barrow's  monument  lay  an  old  garden  designed 
on  the  formal  lines  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  full  of 
honeysuckle  arbours  and  narrow  twisted  paths :  so 
rich,  and  so  tangled  that  every  year  a  great  part 
of  its  fruitfulness  ran  to  waste.  Long  rows  of 
lavender  were  there;  and  alleys  of  hoary  apple- 
trees  whose,  gnarled  branches  overreached  the 
paths:  and  the  whole  place  was  so  crowded  with 
decaying  vegetable  matter  and  the  mould  of  fallen 
leaves  that  even  in  high  summer  it  had  an  autum- 
nal savour  and  a  ripe  smell  that  was  not  unlike  that 
of  an  apple  loft. 

Through  this  shady  precinct  he  passed  carrying 
his  hand-bag,  pausing  only  in  a  sudden  patch  of 
light  where  a  bank  of  tawny  scabious  diffused  an 
aromatic  perfume  in  the  sun.  He  paused,  not  be- 
cause he  was  impressed  by  their  garish  beauty,  but 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  133 

because  many  of  the  heads  were  now  frequented  by 
a  new  hatch  of  Comma  butterflies  eagerly  expand- 
ing their  serrated  wings,  drugged  already  with  the 
flowers'  harsh  honey.  Edwin  had  never  seen  this 
uncommon  butterfly  before.  In  the  neighbourhood 
of  St.  Luke's  the  species,  which  is  notoriously  ca- 
pricious, had  never  appeared.  He  wished  that  he 
had  a  butterfly  net  with  him:  for  by  catching  one 
of  them  he  would  have  scored  over  Widdup. 

So  he  passed  to  Mrs.  Barrow's  house,  a  dark 
Georgian  structure  as  twisted  and  autumnal  as 
her  garden,  and  there,  in  a  gloomy  sitting-room, 
he  found  the  old  lady  herself,  a  little  demure  crea- 
ture with  round-hunched,  shawl-covered  shoulders, 
like  the  dormouse  in  Alice  in  Wonderland,  taking 
tea  with  her  companion,  a  decorous  lady  of  the  same 
age  named  Miss  Beecock. 

They  did  their  best  to  make  Edwin  feel  at  home. 
They  never  mentioned  his  mother,  but  it  was  so  ob- 
vious that  their  maidenly  commonplaces  were  only 
designed  to  divert  his  mind  from  the  tragic  shadow 
which  he  carried  with  him,  that  Edwin  felt  inclined 
to  scandalise  them  by  talking  of  it.  ...  Their 
deliberate  awkward  kindness,  the  cautious  glances 
which  they  exchanged,  the  little  sniff  of  emotion 
which  Mrs.  Barrow  concealed  in  her  empty  teacup, 
when  the  pitiful  contemplation  of  Edwin's  youth 
and  innocence  overcame  her,  would  have  been 
amusing  if  there  had  been  room  for  anything  amus- 
ing on  the  darkened  earth. 

When  they  had  finished  the  buttered  scones  and 
medlar  jelly  which  Mrs.  Barrow  made  from  fruit 
that  fell  on  the  dark  leaf -mould  of  her  garden,  Mrs. 


134         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Barrow  herself  moved  with  short  steps  to  a  mahog- 
any bureau,  and  calling  Edwin  to  her  side,  showed 
him  one  of  those  secret  drawers  whose  secret  every- 
body knows,  smelling  of  cedar  wood  and  aged  russia 
leather.  From  this  drawer  she  produced  a  purse 
made  of  beadwork,  and  from  the  purse  her  fragile 
fingers  extracted  a  Georgian  five-shilling  piece, 
which,  with  a  sigh,  she  then  presented  to  Edwin. 
"If  I  were  you,"  she  said,  "I  don't  think  I  should 
spend  it.  Old  coins  like  that  are  valuable.  Mr. 
Barrow  had  a  great  interest  in  anything  old  and 
historical." 

Edwin  was  so  surprised  by  this  generosity  that 
he  almost  forgot  to  thank  her;  but  Miss  Beecock, 
in  a  shrill,  soft  voice,  reminded  him  of  his  duty, 
saying:  "Now,  isn't  that  kind  of  Mrs.  Barrow, 
Edwin?"  Edwin  hastily  agreed  that  it  was,  and 
the  old  ladies  smiled  at  one  another,  as  though  they 
were  saying,  "Isn't  that  clever  of  us,  to  give  him  a 
toy  that  will  take  his  mind  off  his  mother?"  In 
the  silence  that  followed,  a  canary  which  had  been 
pecking  at  a  lump  of  sugar  stuck  in  the  bars  of  his 
cage,  attracted  by  the  bright  hues  of  the  ribbon  on 
Mrs.  Barrow's  cap,  broke  into  a  shrill  twitter. 

"Sweet  .  .  .  swee  .  .  .  t,"  said  Mrs.  Barrow  with 
pursed  lips. 

"Sweet  .  .  .  sweet,"  echoed  Miss  Beecock,  with 
a  little  laugh. 

"I  think  I  will  take  my  crochet  on  to  the  lawn," 
said  Mrs.  Barrow. 

"If  you  have  your  shawl,  and  the  grass  is  not  too 
damp,"  Miss  Beecock  reminded  her. 

"There  was  a  heavy  dew  last  week,"  said  Mrs. 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  135 

Barrow.  "Which  day  was  it?  I  think  it  must  have 
been  Tuesday.  Yes  ...  it  was  Tuesday.  That 
was  the  day  on  which  I  spoke  to  Mr.  Waldron 
about  thinning  the  grapes.  And  now,  Edwin,  would 
you  like  to  fetch  a  book  from  the  drawing-room? 
You  may  prefer  to  bring  it  out  on  to  the  lawn. 
You  know  the  way.  The  key  is  on  the  outside  of 
the  door." 

Edwin  said,  "Yes."  He  left  them  and  climbed 
the  creaking  oak  stairs,  to  the  first  story  landing, 
a  wide  passage  of  polished  wood  lit  by  a  shining 
fanlight  that  overlooked  the  street.  He  knew  the 
room  well  enough.  It  had  been  one  of  the  delights 
of  his  childhood.  It  was  long,  and  irregular  in 
shape,  and  crammed  with  curious  things  that  he 
had  once  found  entertaining. 

He  unlocked  the  door  and  released  immediately 
a  concentrated  odour  of  the  same  character  as  that 
which  had  issued  from  the  secret  drawer  in  Mrs. 
Barrow's  bureau.  Damp  and  cedar  wood  and 
mouldy  russia  leather.  All  the  chairs  in  the  room 
were  covered  with  white  draw-sheets  as  though 
they  were  dead  and  awaiting  burial.  The  Venetian 
blinds  were  down,  and  when  Edwin  raised  them, 
the  heavy  rep  curtains  at  the  side  of  the  three  tall 
windows  admitted  no  more  than  an  ecclesiastical 
twilight. 

There,  however,  stood  the  things  which  had  de- 
lighted his  youth.  Nothing  had  been  moved  a  hair's- 
breadth  for  many  years :  since  the  day,  indeed,  long 
before  Edwin  was  born,  when  Mr.  Barrow  had  died. 
It  was  the  best  room  of  the  house:  and  so  rever- 
enced by  Mrs.  Barrow  that  she  would  never  have 


136         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

dreamed  of  living  in  it  or  using  it  at  all  except  on 
Christmas  Day,  when  a  melancholy  family  party 
of  relatives  and  possible  heirs  assembled  to  do  their 
duty  by  the  old  lady.  Then,  and  only  then,  a  fire 
was  lighted,  extracting  from  the  walls  a  curious 
odour  of  dry  rot,  which  resembled,  curiously 
enough,  the  apple-loft  odour  which  pervaded  the 
garden. 

Edwin  was  soon  at  home.  Here  was  a  great 
glass-fronted  mahogany  bookcase  the  wonder  of 
which  he  had  never  thoroughly  explored.  Here 
was  the  flat  glass  showcase,  shaped  like  a  card- 
table  in  which  a  number  of  Mr.  Barrow's  curiosi- 
ties reposed.  Here  was  the  great  musical-box 
(glass-topped  again)  with  its  prickly  brass  cylin- 
der and  twanging  teeth  for  notes,  and  a  winding 
lever  that  made  a  sound  as  impressive  as  the  wind- 
ing of  a  grandfather's  clock. 

Edwin  thought  he  would  try  a  tune.  He  wound 
up  the  mechanism,  pressed  over  the  starting  lever, 
and  the  prickly  cylinder  began  slowly  to  revolve. 
It  made  a  bad  start;  for  no  one  knows  how  many 
years  ago  it  had  been  stopped  in  the  middle  of  a 
tune.  Then,  having  finished  the  broken  cadence, 
it  burst  gaily  into  the  song  called  "Mousetraps  for 
Sale,"  a  pathetic  ballad  which  may  have  sounded 
sprightly  in  the  ears  of  young  people  fifty  years 
ago,  but  in  this  strange  room  was  invested  with  a 
pathetic  and  faded  quality  which  made  Edwin  wish 
it  would  stop.  There  was  no  need  for  him  to  pull 
back  the  lever,  for  the  musical  box,  as  though  guess- 
ing his  wishes,  suddenly  petered  out  with  a  sort  of 
metallic  growl.  Edwin  laughed  in  spite  of  himself, 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  137 

at  this  peculiar  noise,  and  hearing  the  echo  of  his 
own  laugh  turned  to  find  himself  staring  into  the 
jealous  eyes  of  a  portrait  of  a  Victorian  gentleman 
whom  he  took  to  be  the  late  Mr.  Barrow,  for  whose 
delectation,  over  his  glass  of  punch,  the  instrument 
had  been  purchased.  Edwin  began  to  feel  a  little 
uneasy.  The  feeling  annoyed  him.  "I'm  silly  to 
be  like  this,"  he  said  to  himself.  "I  suppose  it's 
the  uncertainty.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  wish  I  knew.  .  .  ." 

He  took  refuge  in  the  bookcase,  from  which  he 
extracted,  to  his  great  delight,  the  complete  works 
of  Shenstone  in  two  volumes,  bound  in  slippery  calf 
and  published  by  Dodsley  in  the  year  seventeen- 
seventy.  .  .  .  The  books  were  in  a  beautiful  state 
of  preservation.  Edwin  doubted  if  they  had  ever 
been  read.  Mr.  Barrow,  no  doubt,  had  purchased 
them  simply  for  their  local  interest.  With  a  final 
glance  at  Mr.  Barrow's  portrait,  in  a  faint  hope 
that  he  approved  of  his  choice,  Edwin  let  down 
the  blinds,  so  that  no  light  penetrated  the  room 
but  a  single  gleam  reflected  from  the  glass  pane  of 
a  wool-worked  fire-guard  that  hung  from  a  bracket 
at  the  side  of  the  fireplace.  With  a  shiver  he  re- 
locked  the  door.  .  .  . 

When  he  reached  the  garden  with  his  Shenstone, 
the  light  was  failing. 

"You  were  a  long  time,  Edwin,"  said  Mrs.  Bar- 
row. 

"Yes,  wasn't  he?"  echoed  Miss  Beecock.  "I'm 
afraid  it  is  time  Mrs.  Barrow  was  going  in." 

Quietly,  and  with  a  leisure  that  seemed  to  pre- 
sume an  endless  placidity  of  existence,  the  old 
ladies  folded  their  work,  sighed,  and  recrossed  the 


138         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

lawn  towards  the  house.  In  a  little  time  came 
supper:  biscuits  and  milk  on  which  a  thick  cream 
had  been  rising  all  day.  Then  Mrs.  Barrow  kissed 
him  good-night.  He  felt  her  face  on  his  cheek:  a 
little  chilly,  but  lax  and  very  soft.  Miss  Beecock 
lighted  him  to  bed  with  a  candle  in  a  highly- 
polished  brass  candlestick.  The  sheets  were  cool 
and  of  old  linen.  The  bedroom  smelt  of  apples. 
With  the  air  of  "Mousetraps  for  Sale"  in  his  head, 
and  a  sleepy  consciousness  of  ancient  creaking  tim- 
bers, Edwin  fell  asleep. 

He  slept  long  and  dreamlessly,  waking  in  the 
morning  to  find  the  sun  shining  brilliantly  through 
Mrs.  Barrow's  lace  curtains.  At  first  he  could  not 
remember  where  he  was,  so  completely  had  sleep, 
bred  of  long  fatigue,  obliterated  his  consciousness. 
Before  he  opened  his  eyes  he  had  half  expected  to 
hear  the  noise  of  Widdup  turning  out  of  bed  with 
a  flop,  or  the  clangour  of  the  six-thirty  bell.  And 
then,  with  a  rush,  the  whole  situation  came  back  to 
him:  this  was  Halesby,  and  the  new  day  might 
be  full  of  tragedy. 

At  his  bedside  Miss  Beecock,  who  had  stolen  into 
the  room  an  hour  or  so  before  in  slippered  feet  and 
found  him  sleeping,  had  placed  a  glass  of  creamy 
milk  and  biscuits.  It  was  awfully  kind  of  her, 
Edwin  thought,  as  he  sipped  the  yellow  cream  at 
the  top  of  the  glass.  Outside  in  the  garden  it  was 
very  quiet.  He  had  overslept  the  morning  chorus 
of  birdsong;  but  he  heard  the  noise  of  a  thrush 
cracking  snail-shells  on  the  gravel  path  beneath  his 
window.  He  had  forgotten  to  wind  up  his  watch 
overnight;  and  when  he  found  it  in  his  waistcoat 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  139 

pocket  where  he  had  left  it  he  saw  that  it  had 
stopped.  "I'd  better  get  up,  anyway,"  he  thought, 
and  while  he  stood  at  the  door  wondering  if  Mrs. 
Barrow's  house  ran  to  a  bathroom,  he  heard  a  clock 
in  the  hall  give  a  loud  whirr  and  then  strike  ten. 
"Good  Lord,  I've  overslept  myself,"  he  thought. 
"I'd  better  buck  up." 

Abandoning  the  uncertainty  of  hunting  for  a  bath 
he  dressed  and  came  downstairs  to  the  sitting-room 
(that  was*what  it  was  called)  in  which  the  meals 
had  been  served  the  day  before.  Mrs.  Barrow  was 
sitting  there  in  pleasant  sunlight,  wearing  a  less 
elaborate  cap  and  a  Shetland  shawl,  and  the  canary, 
whose  brass  cage  and  saffron  plumage  now  shone 
brilliantly  in  the  morning  sunlight,  was  singing  like 
mad.  When  Edwin  came  into  the  room  she  smiled 
at  him. 

"We're  so  glad  that  you  slept  well,"  she  said. 
"Miss  Beecock  went  to  have  a  look  at  you  but  you 
were  sleeping  so  soundly  that  she  didn't  like  to  dis- 
turb you.  You  must  have  been  tired  out.  Now 
you'll  be  ready  for  breakfast." 

At  this  point  Miss  Beecock  entered  the  room,  her 
attire  modified  in  the  same  degree  as  that  of  Mrs. 
Barrow. 

"Ah  .  .  ."  she  said  with  a  little  laugh. ,  "Here 
you  are.  I  must  ask  Annie  for  your  breakfast." 

"He'd  like  a  nice  brown  egg,  lightly  boiled,  and 
some  buttered  toast,"  said  Mrs.  Barrow  temptingly. 

"Yes,  of  course  he  would,"  said  Miss  Beecock. 

"I  think. if  you  don't  mind,"  said  Edwin,  "I'd 
like  to  go  home.  It's  so  late." 


140         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Oh,  you  needn't  mind  us,"  chimed  the  two  old 
ladies. 

That  wasn't  exactly  what  Edwin  had  meant,  but 
he  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded,  and  even  en- 
joyed his  breakfast,  to  the  accompaniment  of  the 
twitterings  of  the  canary  and  his  two  hostesses. 

"You'll  sleep  here  again  to-night,  won't  you?" 
they  said  when  he  was  ready  to  go.  Edwin  thanked 
them.  "Oh,  we're  only  too  pleased  to  be  of  any 
assistance  to  your  mother,"  they  said,  pursuing  his 
departure  with  the  kindest  and  most  innocent  of 
smiles. 

This  time  he  did  not  linger  in  the  old  garden :  he 
was  far  too  anxious  to  get  home  and  learn  how 
things  were  going.  At  the  door  in  the  wall  his 
heart  stood  still.  What  was  he  going  to  find?  It 
seemed  to  him  that  something  terrible  might  be 
waiting  for  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  wall.  It 
was  a  silly  apprehension,  he  thought,  and  when  he 
stepped  into  it  the  new  garden  was  as  sunny  as 
the  old.  Only,  on  the  long  walk  beside  the  bed  of 
stocks,  a  mattress,  blankets,  and  sheets  were  spread 
out  to  air  in  the  sun.  The  scent  of  some  disinfec- 
tant mingled  with  that  of  the  flowers.  His  fears 
supplied  an  awful  explanation.  It  was  the  bedding 
from  his  mother's  room  that  was  spread  out  there 
in  the  sun.  And  when  he  looked  up  to  the  windows 
of  the  house  above  him,  he  saw  that  the  blinds  were 
down.  That,  of  course,  needn't  mean  anything  on 
the  sunny  side  of  the  house.  In  a  great  hurry  he 
turned  the  corner  to  the  front  and  saw  that  the 
blinds  on  that  side  were  down  as  well. 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  141 


m 

In  the  darkened  dining-room  Aunt  Laura  sat  at 
his  mother's  desk  writing  letters  with  dashing  flu- 
ency. When  he  came  in  she  stopped  her  writing 
and  rose  to  meet  him.  "Edwin,  my  poor  dear,"  she 
said,  holding  out  her  hands  to  him.  He  took  no 
notice  of  her  hands. 

"She's  gone,"  he  said,  "in  the  night?" 

"Yes.  ...  In  the  night.  She  passed  away  quite 
quietly.  It's  a  dreadful  blow  for  us,  Edwin,  we 
must  be  brave.  .  .  ." 

He  hadn't  time  for  sentiments  of  that  kind.  "She 
was  alive  when  I  came  yesterday.  And  you  wouldn't 
let  me  see  her.  You,  of  all  people.  .  .  .  She  hated 
you.  She  told  me  so.  She  always  hated  you  .  .  . 
and  she'd  hate  you  for  this  more  than  anything." 

"Edwin,"  she  cried,  "don't  say  these  terrible 
things." 

"They're  true  .  .  .  true.  I  wish  it  were  you  who 
were  dead.  It  was  you  who  stopped  me  from  see- 
ing her  .  .  .  my  little  darling.  .  .  .  Damn  you 
.  .  .  damn  you." 

"Edwin  .  .  .  you  don't  know  what  you're  saying. 
You're  cruel." 

"Cruel.  .  .  .  I  like  that.  Cruel.  Tow  talk  about 
cruelty.  .  .  ." 

"Edwin.  .  .  ."  Aunt  Laura  clutched  nervously 
at  her  breast.  It  was  funny  to  see  this  big  blowzy 
woman  crumple  up  like  that.  She  flopped  down 
in  a  red  plush  chair  and  started  crying  softly  in 
a  thin  voice.  Edwin  didn't  mind.  Let  her  cry. 


142         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

She  deserved  it.  Nothing  of  that  kind  could  soften 
his  indignant  heart. 

"Where's  father?"  he  asked  at  last. 

"I  don't  know.  He's  upstairs  somewhere,"  she 
said  between  her  sobs.  "For  goodness'  sake,  Ed- 
win, don't  go  and  say  things  like  this  to  the  poor 
man.  We  all  have  this  trouble  to  bear.  And  we've 
had  the  strain  of  nursing  her.  Now,  don't  be 
hasty,"  she  pleaded. 

"All  right,"  said  Edwin,  and  left  her. 

Upstairs  on  the  landing  he  found  a  pale,  shadowy 
figure  in  which  he  could  scarcely  recognise  his  fa- 
ther. Neither  of  them  could  speak  at  all.  Edwin 
had  been  ready  with  the  reproaches  that  had  come 
to  his  lips  in  the  presence  of  Aunt  Laura;  but  he 
couldn't  do  it.  This  man  was  too  broken.  He  was 
face  to  face  with  a  grief  as  great  as  his  own.  There 
were  no  words  for  either  of  them.  The  boy  and  the 
man  clung  together  in  each  other's  arms,  overcome 
with  pity  and  with  sorrow.  On  the  landing,  out- 
side the  door  of  the  room  where  she  lay  dead,  they 
stood  together  and  cried  quietly  to  each  other.  And 
now  it  seemed  to  Edwin  as  if  pity  for  his  father 
were  overriding  even  the  intensity  of  his  own  grief ; 
for  she  had  been  everything  to  him,  too,  and  for  so 
many  years.  He  felt  that  he  would  have  done  any- 
thing in  the  world  to  comfort  this  desolate  man, 
whom  he  had  always  taken  for  granted  and  never 
really  loved.  But  his  mother  had  loved  him.  He 
wondered  if  they  could  do  anything  to  assuage  the 
bitterness  of  their  loss  by  loving  one  another.  They 
were  two  people  left  alone  with  nothing  else  in  the 
world  but  each  other.  Why  not  .  .  .?  That,  he 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  143 

thought,  was  what  his  mother  would  have  wished. 

He  felt  his  father's  tears  on  his  forehead,  the 
roughness  of  his  father's  grey  beard.  He  felt  the 
man's  body  quivering  with  sobs,  and  the  arms  which 
clutched  his  body  as  if  that  were  the  only  loved 
thing  left  to  him  in  life.  They  went  together  into 
the  little  room  that  had  always  been  Edwin's,  and 
there  they  knelt  together  beside  the  bed.  He  didn't 
exactly  know  why  they  knelt,  but  kneeling  there 
at  his  side,  with  his  arm  still  clasped  about  his 
waist,  he  supposed  that  his  father  was  praying; 
and  though  Edwin  could  not  understand  what  good 
prayer  could  do,  it  seemed  to  him  a  simple  and  a 
beautiful  thing.  It  made  him  feel  that  he  loved 
his  father  more  than  ever.  He  wished  that  he  could 
pray  himself.  He  tried  to  pray  .  .  .  for  what? 
There  was  nothing  left  in  this  world  for  him  to 
pray  for.  At  last  his  father  rose  to  his  feet  in  the 
dim  room,  and  Edwin  rose  with  him.  He  spoke, 
and  the  tears  still  choked  his  voice  and  his  bearded 
lip  trembled.  "Edwin,"  he  said,  "I  shall  never  be 
able  to  get  over  this.  I'm  broken.  .  .  .  My  life 
.  .  .  my  life  has  .  .  ."  He  stopped. 

"You  don't  know  what  she  was  to  me,  Eddie.  I 
can't  realise,  Eddie,  there  are  only  two  of  us  left. 
We  must  help  each  other  to  bear  it.  We  must  be 
brave." 

Strange  that  a  phrase  which  had  sounded  like 
cant  on  the  lips  of  Aunt  Laura  should  now  seem 
the  truest  and  most  natural  thing  imaginable. 

"We  ...  we  were  like  children  together,"  said 
his  father. 


144         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Again  they  stood  for  a  little  while  in  silence.  At 
last  Edwin,  still  gripping  his  father's  arm,  said, — 

"Father,  may  I  see  her?" 

"Of  course,  dear.  .  .  ." 

They  went  together  to  the  room,  and  his  father 
opened  the  door  and  pulled  up  one  of  the  blinds. 
Mrs.  Bagley,  the  charwoman  who  did  odd  work  in 
the  house  and  was  an  expert  in  this  melancholy 
office,  had  drawn  a  clean  white  sheet  over  the  bed. 
His  mother  lay  there  in  a  cotton  nightdress  with 
her  hands  folded  in  front  of  her,  and  her  lips  gently 
smiling.  Even  her  cheeks  were  faintly  flushed,  but 
the  rest  of  her  face  and  her  hands  were  of  a  waxen 
pallor.  She  looked  very  small  and  childlike.  She 
looked  like  a  small  wax  doll.  In  this  frail  and 
strangely  beautiful  creature  Edwin  could  only  rec- 
ognise a  shadow  of  the  mother  that  he  knew.  It 
was  a  little  girl  that  lay  there,  not  his  mother. 

Edwin  spoke  in  a  whisper, — 

"Should  I  kiss  her?" 

His  father  nodded  and  turned  away. 

But  he  did  not  kiss  her  as  he  had  thought  he 
would.  For  some  reason  he  dared  not,  for  he  could 
not  feel  certain  that  it  was  she  at  all.  He  only 
touched  her  hands,  the  hands  that  he  had  always 
worshipped,  with  his  fingers.  They  were  cold ;  and 
still  her  lips  smiled.  The  room  was  full  of  the 
odour  of  Sanitas  which  some  one  had  sprayed  or 
sprinkled  over  the  floor.  For  the  rest  of  his  life 
the  smell  was  one  which  Edwin  hated;  for  in  his 
mind  it  became  the  smell  of  death. 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  145 

IV 

On  the  evening  after  the  funeral  Edwin  sat  alone 
in  the  drawing-room.  He  sat  there  because  the 
other  room  was  still  cumbered  with  the  remnants 
of  a  melancholy  repast:  several  leaves  of  mahog- 
any had  been  dragged  down  from  the  dust  of  the 
attic  and  had  lengthened  the  dining-room  table  to 
such  an  extent  that  there  was  scarcely  room  to 
move  in  it,  and  round  this  table,  in  the  sunny  after- 
noon, had  clustered  a  large  collection  of  people  who 
smelt  of  black  crape  and  spoke  in  lowered,  gentle 
voices,  out  of  respect  for  the  woman  whom,  it 
seemed  to  Edwin,  they  had  never  -known. 

Everybody  who  entered  the  house — and  there 
were  many,  for  Mr.  Ingleby  was  much  respected  in 
Halesby — wore  the  same  grave  air.  Even  the  un- 
dertaker, a  brisk  little  man  with  a  fiery  red  beard 
and  one  shoulder  lower  than  the  other  from  the 
constant  carrying  of  coffins,  treated  his  daily  task 
with  the  same  sort  of  mute  reverence.  His  face,  at 
any  rate,  wore  an  expression  that  matched  that  of 
the  mourners;  and  Edwin  was  only  disillusioned 
as  to  the  sincerity  of  his  expression  when  he  heard 
him  swearing  violently  at  the  driver  of  the  first 
mourning  carriage.  This  moment  of  relaxation 
caused  him  to  forget  himself  so  far  as  to  whistle 
a  pantomime  song  as  he  crossed  the  drive. 

The  black-coated  people  in  the  dining-room  did 
not  hear  him:  they  were  far  too  busy  being  seri- 
ous: and  behind  them,  from  time  to  time,  Edwin 
could  see  the  grey  face  of  his  father,  with  curiously 
tired  and  puzzled  eyes.  Puzzled  •*  .  .  that  was  the 


146         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

only  word  for  them.  It  was  just  as  if  the  man 
were  protesting,  in  all  simplicity,  against  the  un- 
reason and  injustice  of  the  blow  which  had  fallen 
on  him.  Edwin,  savagely  hating  the  presence  of 
all  these  hushed,  uninterested  people,  found  in  his 
father's  suffering  face  a  sudden  reinforcement  to 
his  anger.  It  was  a  shame,  a  damned,  ghastly 
shame,  that  a  simple  man  like  that  should  be  hit 
in  the  dark ;  and  even  more  pathetic  that  he  should 
be  simple  enough  to  take  the  sympathy  of  his  neigh- 
bours at  its  face  value.  Edwin  glowed  with  a  new 
and  protective  love  for  his  father.  It  was  as  well 
that  some  generous  emotion  should  be  born  to  take 
the  place  of  his  numb  grief. 

Above  all,  the  sight  of  his  Aunt  Laura,  who  was 
conscientiously  doing  the  honours  of  the  house, 
maddened  him.  He  could  not  look  at  her  without 
remembering  that  she  had  been  selfish  and  unkind 
to  his  mother;  that,  on  the  very  last  day,  she  had 
robbed  him  of  the  privilege  of  seeing  his  darling 
alive.  Even  now,  he  believed  that  she  was  enjoying 
herself.  Her  eyes  occasionally  brimmed  with  tears, 
but  that  meant  nothing.  They  were  such  easy  tears 
...  so  different  from  the  terrible  tears  that  had 
shaken  his  father's  body  on  the  day  of  desolation. 
If  only  she  were  dead,  he  thought,  there  would  be 
no  great  loss. 

And  yet,  while  he  thought  of  this,  he  suddenly 
caught  sight  of  her  husband,  the  little  manufac- 
turer whom  he  had  lately  begun  to  know  as  Uncle 
Albert,  a  small  man  with  a  shiny  bald  head  and  a 
diffident  manner :  and  in  the  eyes  of  Uncle  Albert, 
which  were  fixed  upon  his  wife,  he  saw  an  extraor- 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  147 

dinary  mixture  of  love  and  admiration  for  this 
shallow,  diffuse  creature  whom  he  had  found  him- 
self hating. 

"If  Aunt  Laura  were  to  die,"  he  thought,  "Uncle 
Albert  might  very  well  be  like  father  is  to-day. 
That's  a  queer  idea.  .  .  ."  He  was  amazed  at  the 
complications  of  human  relationships  and  the  po- 
tential pain  that  love  brings  with  it.  He  thought, 
"It's  no  good  thinking  about  it.  ...  I  give  it  up. 
I  don't  really  wish  she  were  dead.  I  only  wish 
.  .  .  that  there  were  no  such  thing  as  death.  Why 
does  God  allow  it?"  No  answer  came  to  him:  but 
in  place  of  an  answer  another  angry  impulse. 
"Curse  God,"  he  thought,  meaning  the  God  of  Mr. 
Leeming,  the  God  to  whom  this  queer  collection  of 
people  were  to  dedicate  his  mother's  soul.  Another 
thought  followed  quickly:  "What's  the  good  of 
cursing  him?  He  doesn't  exist.  If  he  existed  this 
sort  of  thing  couldn't  happen.  .  .  ." 

People  were  seriously  setting  themselves  to  the 
putting  on  of  black  kid  gloves  that  the  undertaker 
had  provided.  The  horses  on  the  gravel  drive  were 
getting  uneasy  and  the  cab  wheels  made  a  grating 
noise.  Heavy  steps  were  heard  descending  the 
stairs — awkward  steps  like  those  of  men  moving 
furniture.  Edwin  saw  that  his  father  had  heard 
too.  He  was  looking  towards  the  closed  door  of 
the  room.  He  wanted  to  go  and  take  his  father's 
hand  and  hold  it,  but  the  space  round  the  edge  of 
the  table  was  packed  with  people.  Now  they  had 
opened  the  hall  door.  He  dared  not  look  out  of  the 
window. 

The  voice  of  Aunt  Laura,  most  studiously  kind, 


148         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

said  to  him :  "Eddie,  you'll  come  along  with  your 
father  and  Uncle  Albert  and  me."  He  said,  "All 
right."  People  at  the  side  of  the  table  made  way 
for  him.  On  his  way  he  found  himself  abreast  of 
his  friend,  Miss  Beecock.  She  said  nothing,  but 
smiled  at  him  and  put  her  arm  on  his  sleeve.  She 
was  wearing  black  silk  mittens,  and  her  eyes  were 
full  of  tears.  That  weak,  tearful  smile  nearly  did 
for  Edwin. 

The  first  cab  was  drawn  up  at  the  hall  door. 
Edwin  scrambled  in  last.  Aunt  Laura,  with  a 
rustle  of  black  silk,  made  way  for  him.  She  took 
out  her  handkerchief,  and  Edwin  was  stifled  with 
a  wave  of  scent.  He  hated  scent:  but  anyway  it 
was  better  than  Sanitas.  He  saw  his  father's  puz- 
zled eyes  on  the  other  side  of  the  cab  ...  so  old, 
so  awfully  old.  Uncle  Albert  took  out  his  hand- 
kerchief, too.  Evidently,  Edwin  thought,  it  was 
the  correct  thing  to  do.  He  had  misjudged  him. 
Uncle  Albert  proceeded  to  blow  his  nose. 

They  were  driving  through  the  High  Street.  Aunt 
Laura  noticed  that  most  of  the  shop  shutters  were 
up,  and  in  several  cases  tradesmen  were  standing 
at  their  shop  doors  bare-headed  as  they  passed. 

"It's  very  kind  of  them  .  .  .  very  nice  to  see  so 
much  respect,  John,"  she  said  to  his  father.  Mr. 
Ingleby  said  "Yes,"  and  Aunt  Laura,  with  a  little 
laugh  that  was  merely  a  symptom  of  nervousness, 
went  on:  "I  expect  there'll  be  a  crowd  at  the 
cemetery  gate."  This  time  Mr.  Ingleby  said  noth- 
ing and  Uncle  Albert  once  more  stolidly  blew  his 
nose.  "Albert,  dear,  I  wish  you  wouldn't,"  said 
Aunt  Laura.  The  brakes  grated,  and  the  cab  stopped 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  149 

with  a  jerk.  "Come  along,  Edwin,  jump  out,  there's 
a  good  boy,"  said  Aunt  Laura.  "You'll  walk  with 
your  father." 

He  walked  with  his  father.  The  church  was  full. 
His  father  went  with  bowed  head,  seeing  nothing; 
but  Edwin  was  conscious  of  many  faces  that  he 
knew.  In  the  middle  of  the  aisle  the  thought  sud- 
denly came  to  him  that  these  people  weren't  really 
there  to  do  honour  to  his  mother:  they  were  so 
many  that  most  of  them  could  never  have  known 
her:  no,  they  were  just  curious  people  who  had 
flocked  there  to  find  something  sensational  in  the 
faces  of  the  mourners.  In  a  dull  place  like  Halesby 
a  funeral,  and  such  an  important  funeral,  was 
an  unusual  diversion.  And  this  revelation  made 
him  determined  that  whatever  happened  he  would 
show  no  emotion  that  might  tickle  the  sensations1 
of  these  ghouls.  He  only  wished  to  goodness  that 
he  could  explain  the  matter  to  his  father  so  that 
he  too  might  give  them  nothing  to  gloat  over. 

In  the  church,  where  a  faint  mustiness  mingled 
with  the  exotic  scent  of  arum  lilies  that  diffused 
from  the  heap  of  wreaths  on  the  coffin,  Edwin  held 
himself  upright.  They  sang  a  hymn :  "I  heard  the 
voice  of  Jesus  say  .  .  .  Come  unto  me  and  rest" — • 
the  first  quatrain  in  unison,  and  Edwin  sang  with 
them,  just  as  he  would  have  sung  in  the  chapel  at 
St.  Luke's.  In  the  churchyard,  when  they  walked 
in  procession  behind  the  bearers  to  the  grave-side, 
his  eyes  were  still  dry,  his  lips  did  not  tremble, 
though  Aunt  Laura's  scented  handkerchief  was  now 
drenched  with  tears,  and  even  Uncle  Albert,  a  vir- 
tual outsider,  was  on  the  edge  of  violent  emotion. 


ISO         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

The  burial  service  was  nothing  to  Edwin.  There 
was  no  consolation  in  it  nor,  to  him,  the  least  atom 
of  religious  feeling.  A  mockery,  a  mockery,  a 
solemn  and  pretentious  mockery.  For  she  was  dead 
.  .  .  she  had  vanished  altogether,  and  the  thing 
that  they  were  burying  with  muttered  formulas 
and  tears  was  no  more  she  than  the  empty  parch- 
ment of  the  cocoon  is  the  glowing  butterfly.  Let 
them  cry  their  eyes  out.  That  was  not  grief.  Beyond 
tears.  Beyond  tears.  .  .  . 

With  a  curious  air  of  relief  that  was  very  near 
to  a  furtive  gaiety,  the  party  drove  back 'and  re- 
assembled in  the  dining-room.  All  except  Mr. 
Ingleby.  "He  has  gone  to  his  room,  poor  dear," 
said  Aunt  Laura,  with  her  nervous  laugh.  "Mrs. 
Barrow,  do  have  a  slice  of  ginger-cake.  Just  a 
little?"  Eound  the  long  table  conversation  began 
to  flow,  cautiously  at  first,  but  with  an  increasing 
confidence,  when  it  became  clear  that  it  was  un- 
attended by  any  revengeful  consequences. 

"Didn't  you  think  it  was  awfully  nice  to  see  the 
people  in  High  Street  so  respectful,  Mrs.  Willis?" 
said  Aunt  Laura.  Edwin  looked  up.  This  then 
was  the  Mrs.  Willis  of  Mawne  Hall  with  whom  his 
mother  had  planned  the  visit  to  Switzerland.  He 
saw  a  middle-aged  woman  in  black  satin,  with  a 
gold  watch-chain  round  her  neck  and  jet  in  her 
bonnet.  She  caught  his  interested  eyes  and  in  re- 
turn smiled.  Aunt  Laura  went  unanswered.  "I 
wonder,"  Edwin  thought,  "if  she  understands 
what  a  fraud  the  whole  thing  is."  At  any  rate 
she  looked  kind  .  .  .  and  she  had  been  kind  to  his 
mother  too.  A  moment  later  she  said  good-bye,  and 


THE  DARK  HOUSE  151 

when  Aunt  Laura  had  escorted  her  to  the  door, 
for  Mrs.  Willis  was  a  person  of  consequence,  the 
rest  of  the  company  began  to  disappear.  At  last 
Edwin  was  left  alone  in  the  room  with  his  aunt 
and  uncle.  Aunt  Laura's  face,  that  had  been  glow- 
ing with  hospitable  smiles,  now  took  a  more  seri- 
ous cast. 

"Edwin,"  she  said,  "I  want  to  speak  to  you." 

"Do  you?"  said  Edwin.    "Well  ...  go  on." 

"It's  very  painful  .  .  .  I'm  afraid  .  .  .  I'm  half 
afraid  that  it  will  have  upset  your  father,  poor 
man — as  if  he  hadn't  enough  to  put  up  with." 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean?" 

"How  can  you  ask?  I  mean  your  behaviour  to- 
day. In  the  church.  In  the  cemetery.  You  stood 
there  just  as  if  ...  just  as  if  ...  oh,  it  was  most 
irreverent.  Not  a  sign  of  grief!  You  must  have 
noticed  it,  Albert?" 

Uncle  Albert,  most  uncomfortable  at  his  inclu- 
sion in  this  family  scene,  but  fully  aware  of  the 
disaster  which  would  follow  denial,  said,  "Yes  .  .  . 
yes  .  .  .  yes,  certainly." 

"Every  one  must  have  noticed  it,"  Aunt  Laura 
went  on.  "It  was  a  public  scandal.  It  was  un- 
natural. It  showed  such  a  curious  lack  of  feeling." 

"Feeling,"  said  Edwin.  "What  do  you  know 
about  feeling?" 

"Steady,  Edwin,  steady,"  from  Uncle  Albert. 

"If  mother  were  here,"  he  said,  "and  could  hear 
you  talking  this  damned  piffle  she'd  laugh  at  you. 
That's  what  she'd  do." 

"Edwin!" 


152         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"It's  true.  .  .  .  She  couldn't  stick  your  sort  of 
grief  at  any  price." 

"On  the  very  day  of  her  burial.  .  .  ." 

"She's  not  buried.  It  wasn't  she  you  buried.  Oh, 
I'm  sick  of  you.  .  .  ." 

"Edwin  .  .  ."  said  Uncle  Albert,  who  felt  that 
something  in  the  way  of  protection  was  demanded 
of  him.  "Really  now  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  you,  uncle,"  said  Edwin. 

"You  cruel  boy,"  Aunt  Laura  sobbed. 

He  left  them  there.  He  carried  his  bitterness 
into  the  drawing-room  on  the  other  side  of  the 
passage.  ...  It  was  very  quiet  there.  Through 
the  bow  window  floated  the  perfume  of  the  bed  of 
stocks.  In  the  corner  stood  the  piano.  He  had 
often  listened  to  his  mother  playing  at  night  when 
he  was  in  bed.  He  loved  her  to  play  him  to  sleep. 
The  piano  was  shut;  and  the  shut  piano  seemed  to 
him  symbolical.  All  the  music  and  all  the  beauty 
that  had  been  there  had  gone  out  of  the  house.  The 
house  was  an  empty  shell.  Like  a  dry  chrysalis. 
Like  a  coffin.  There,  on  the  hearthrug,  where  he 
had  crawled  as  a  child,  he  lay  down  and  cried. 


CHAPTER  X 

THRENODY 


FROM  this  emotional  maelstrom  the  current  of 
Edwin's  life  flowed  into  a  strange  peace.  It 
seemed  that  the  catastrophe  of  Mrs.  Ingleby's  death 
had  taken  the  Halesby  household  by  surprise  and 
stunned  it  so  thoroughly  that  it  would  never  re- 
cover its  normal  consciousness.  Edwin's  father, 
who  had  now  returned  to  the  ordinary  round  of 
business,  was  still  dazed  and  puzzled,  and  very 
grey.  Their  servant,  a  young  woman  with  an  ex- 
aggerated sense  of  the  proprieties,  or  perhaps  a 
dread  of  living  alone  in  such  a  gloomy  house,  had 
given  notice.  Only  Aunt  Laura,  to  Edwin's  shame, 
showed  the  least  capacity  for  dealing  with  the 
situation. 

However  few  of  the  graces  may  have  fallen  to 
her  lot,  she  was  certainly  not  lacking  in  the  do- 
mestic virtues.  When  the  maid  departed  with  her 
tin  trunk  and  many  tearful  protestations  of  her 
devotion  to  the  memory  of  the  dear  mistress,  Aunt 
Laura  turned  up  her  sleeves  and  took  possession  of 
the  kitchen,  and  Mr.  Ingleby,  who  had  gloomily 
anticipated  a  domestic  wilderness,  found  that  in 
spite  of  the  maid's  defection,  ambrosial  food  ap- 

153 


154         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

peared  before  him  like  manna  from  heaven,  the 
only  difference  being  that  Uncle  Albert,  who  could 
not  be  permitted  for  one  moment  to  remain  a 
bachelor,  took  his  meals  with  the  family. 

The  relation  between  Edwin  and  Aunt  Laura  was 
still  difficult.  She  could  not  forget — and  he  could 
not  withdraw — the  bitter  things  that  had  been  said 
on  that  most  mournful  day,  though  her  native  good 
humour,  which  was  profuse  and  blustery  like  the 
rest  of  her,  made  it  difficult  for  her  to  maintain 
an  attitude  of  injured  benignance.  Even  Edwin 
had  to  admit  that  she  was  a  good  cook;  but  the 
excellence  of  her  food  was  qualified  by  her  inces- 
sant chatter  and  her  nervous  laugh.  Edwin  simply 
couldn't  stick  them ;  but  it  amazed  him  to  find  that 
Uncle  Albert  evidently  found  them  cheerful  and 
reassuring.  Indeed,  it  was  possibly  one  of  the 
reasons  why  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  her,  being 
a  man  who  resembled  her  in  nothing  and  whose 
enthusiasms  could  never  get  him  beyond  a  couple 
of  words  and  a  giggle. 

Mr.  Ingleby  too  seemed  to  emerge  without  seri- 
ous irritation  from  this  diurnal  bath  of  small-talk, 
retiring,  as  Edwin  supposed,  to  certain  gloomy 
depths  of  his  own  consciousness  where  the  froth 
and  bubble  of  Aunt  Laura's  conversation  became 
imperceptible.  Even  when  she  spoke  to  him  directly 
— though  most  of  her  observations  were  addressed 
to  the  world  in  general — he  would  not  trouble  to 
answer  her:  a  slight  which  Aunt  Laura  took  quite 
good-humouredly. 

"Bless  you,"  she  would  have  said,  "the  man's  so 
wrapped  up  in  himself  that  he's  miles  away  from 


THRENODY  155 

anywhere.  Of  course  you  can  understand  it  in  a 
man  of  his  age,  especially  when  you  realise  how 
devoted  he  was  to  poor  Beatrice" — Mrs.  Ingleby's 
name  might  never  now  escape  the  commiserating 
prefix — "but  when  a  boy  like  Edwin  tries  it  on  it's 
another  matter  altogether.  It's  simply  conceit. 
Personally,  I  think  it  was  a  great  mistake  of  his 
poor  mother's  to  send  him  to  St.  Luke's.  The  gram- 
mar school's  good  enough  for  the  Willises.  A  great 
mistake.  .  .  .  The  boy  is  getting  ideas  of  himself 
that  aren't  warranted  by  his  position.  I  don't 
know  what  we  are  to  do  with  him.  We  certainly 
can't  have  him  running  wild  here."  And  Uncle 
Albert  would  say:  "Certainly,  certainly,  my 
love.  .  .  ." 

In  spite  of  these  pronounced  opinions  Aunt 
Laura  was  careful  not  to  cross  swords  with  Edwin 
himself.  Indeed,  she  went  a  good  deal  out  of  her 
way  to  propitiate  him  with  various  material  kind- 
nesses, and  particularly  certain  delicacies  in  the 
way  of  food,  which,  to  the  ruin  of  her  figure  in  later 
life,  represented  to  her  the  height  of  earthly  enjoy- 
ment. Edwin  didn't  quite  know  how  to  take  these 
attentions.  He  couldn't  help  disliking  her,  and 
the  fact  that  she  was  really  kind  to  him  rather 
took  the  wind  out  of  his  sails.  He  would  have  been 
much  happier  if  they  had  been  allowed  to  remain 
in  a  state  of  armed  neutrality. 

A  fortnight  passed  .  .  .  happily  for  Edwin  in 
spite  of  all  that  he  felt  he  ought  to  feel.  He  missed 
his  mother  awfully.  That  was  true  enough.  And 
yet  .  .  .  and  yet  it  was  also  true  to  say  that  he 
was  only  beginning  to  live:  to  appreciate  the  joy 


156         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

of  his  growing  strength :  to  realise  the  enchanted 
domains  that  were  open  to  his  eager  feet  and  to 
his  eager  mind.  Here  he  had  freedom,  leisure, 
health :  so  much  of  the  world  to  see :  so  much  of 
human  knowledge  to  explore.  And  though  the 
thought  of  death,  and  the  particular  disaster  that 
had  befallen  him  fell  upon  his  spirit  sometimes 
with  a  shadow  that  plunged  the  whole  world  into 
desperate  darkness,  he  could  not  deny  that  the 
shadow  was  gradually  lifting,  and  the  character  of 
the  agony  that  had  desolated  him  was  becoming 
less  spontaneous,  till,  in  the  end,  it  became  almost 
a  calculable  emotion  that  might  be  indulged  or 
banished  at  will.  He  found  it  difficult  to  under- 
stand this.  He  thought:  "I'm  a  brute,  a  callous, 
insensitive  brute.  What  would  she  think  of 
me  .  .  .  ?  And  yet,  I  can't  help  it.  I'm  made  like 
that.  ..."  And  then,  after  long  and  bitter  de- 
liberation: "I  believe  she  would  understand.  I 
expect  she  was  made  like  that  too.  I'm  sure  she 
was.  And  if  there's  one  thing  in  the  world  that 
she'd  hate  it  would  be  that  I  should  force  myself 
to  pretend  anything." 

The  high  summer  weather  held.  Never  was  there 
such  a  June.  Edwin,  in  the  joy  of  perfect  health, 
would  get  up  very  early  in  the  morning  when  the 
dew  lay  on  the  roses,  and  run  in  a  sweater  and  flan- 
nel trousers  down  the  lane  and  over  the  field  to  the 
mill-pond  where  he  and  his  mother  had  walked  so 
often  in  the  evenings  of  spring.  Here,  where  the 
water  was  deepest  and  great  striped  perch  stole 
slowly  under  the  camp-shedding,  he  would  strip  and 
bathe,  lying  on  his  back  in  the  water  so  that  low 


THRENODY  157 

sunbeams  came  dancing  over  the  surface  into  his 
eyes  that  were  on  the  level  of  the  flat  water-lily 
leaves  and  their  yellow  balls  now  breaking  into 
cups. 

Afterwards  when  he  would  sit  glowing  on  the 
bank,  the  sun  would  be  rising  and  growing  warmer 
every  minute,  and  this  new  warmth  would  seem  to 
accentuate  the  odour  of  the  place  that  was  compact 
of  the  yellow  water-lily's  harsh  savour,  the  odour 
of  soaked  wood,  and  another,  more  subtly  blended : 
the  composite  smell  of  water  that  is  neither  fast 
nor  stagnant,  the  most  provocative  and  the  coolest 
smell  on  earth. 

On  the  way  home  he  would  sometimes  get  a  whiff 
of  the  miller's  cowhouse,  when  the  door  was  thrown- 
open,  and  from  within  there  came  a  sound  of  quiet 
breathing  or  of  milk  hissing  in  a  pail.  And  some- 
times, from  the  garden,  the  scent  of  a  weed  bonfire 
would  drift  across  his  path.  All  things  smelt  more 
poignantly  at  this  early  hour  of  the  morning.  All 
things  smell  more  wonderfully  early  in  life.  .  .  . 

With  these  wonders  the  day  began ;  but  stranger 
things  lay  in  store  for  him.  He  revisited  all  his 
old  haunts:  the  tangled  woods  and  gardens  of 
Shenstone  on  the  hill-side:  the  ruins  of  the  Cis- 
tercian abbey  on  whose  fall  the  poet  had  moralised^ 
the  little  chapel  that  marked  the  grave  of  the  mur- 
dered Mercian  prince.  His  bicycle  took  him  far- 
ther. Westward  .  .  .  always  westward. 

In  those  days  it  always  seemed  to  him  as  if  the 
mountainous  country  that  his  mother  had  shown 
him  that  evening  on  Uffdown,  rolling  away  into 
remote  and  cloudy  splendours,  must  be  the  land  of 


158         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

his  heart's  desire :  and  though  he  could  never  reach 
it  in  a  day,  he  managed  several  times  to  cross  the 
Severn  and  even  to  scale  the  foothills  upon  the 
farther  bank  from  which  he  could  see  the  Glee  Hills 
rising  in  a  magnificent  bareness,  shaking  the  woods 
and  pastures  from  their  knees.  And  these  distant 
hills  would  tempt  him  to  think  of  the  future  and 
other  desires  of  his  heart:  in  the  near  distance 
Oxford,  where  Layton  and  other  demigods  in  grey 
flannel  trousers  abode,  and  beyond  the  fine  untrav- 
elled  world,  rivers  and  seas  and  forests,  desolate 
wonderful  names.  China  .  .  .  Africa  .  .  .  "Some 
day,"  he  said  to  himself,  "I  will  go  to  Africa.  .  .  ." 

In  this  way  he  began  to  think  of  his  present 
adventures  as  a  kind  of  prelude  to  others  remoter 
and  more  vast.  One  day  he  had  ridden  farther  away 
than  usual,  and  having  taken  his  lunch  at  the 
bridge  town  of  Bewdley,  he  pushed  his  bicycle  up 
the  immense  hill  that  overshadows  the  town  along 
the  road  to  Tenbury.  For  all  its  steepness  this 
mountain  road  was  strangely  exhilarating,  the  air 
that  moved  above  it  grew  so  clean  and  clear.  Below 
him,  between  the  road  and  the  river,  lay  the  mighty 
remnants  of  the  Forest  of  Wyre. 

His  way  tumbled  again  to  a  green  valley,  where 
no  mountains  were  to  be  seen;  and  while  Edwin 
was  deciding  to  turn  off  down  the  first  descending 
lane  and  explore  the  forest,  he  heard  a  sound  of 
spades  and  pickaxes  and  came  upon  a  group  of 
navvies,  several  of  them  stripped  to  the  waist  in 
the  sun,  working  at  a  cutting  of  red  earth  that  was 
already  deep  on  either  side  of  the  road.  For  the 
most  part  they  worked  in  silence ;  but  one  of  them, 


THRENODY  159 

a  little  one-eyed  man,  with  a  stiff  soldierly  back, 
encouraged  them  with  a  string  of  jokes.  They 
called  him  "Gunner,"  and  the  elaboration  with 
which  his  chest  had  been  tattooed  with  nautical 
symbols  led  Edwin  to  suppose  that  he  was  a  sailor. 
When  he  saw  Edwin  leaning  on  his  bicycle  and 
watching  the  work,  he  called  out  to  him,  asking  if 
he  wanted  a  job.  Edwin  shook  his  head.  "I  reck- 
on," said  the  Gunner,  "that  a  foreman's  job  would 
be  more  in  your  line,  Gaffer.  It's  a  fine  sight  to  see 
other  people  working.  The  harder  the  better." 

The  men  laughed  and  stretched  their  backs,  lean- 
ing on  their  spades,  and  Edwin  could  see  how  a 
fine  dew  of  sweat  had  broken  out  under  the  hair 
on  their  chests.  It  seemed  to  him  a  noble  sight. 
"What  are  you  working  at?"  he  asked.  "Is  it  a 
railway?" 

"To  hell  with  your  railway,"  said  the  Gunner. 
"Who  would  make  a  railway  heading  for  the  river 
Severn?  No  .  .  .  It's  a  pipe-track.  This  here's  the 
Welsh  water  scheme." 

"Where  is  it  going  to?" 

"North  Bromwich." 

"And  where  does  it  come  from?" 

"From  Wales.  .  .  .  From  the  Dulas  Valley, 
where  they're  rebuilding  the  reservoir  under  a  hill 
they  call  Savaddan.  And  a  black  job  it  is,  I  can  tell 
you." 

"Is  it  anywhere  near  a  place  called  Felindre? 
I  think  it  must  be." 

"Right,  my  son.  The  pipe-line  goes  through  Fe- 
lindre. Sixty  or  eighty  mile  from  here." 

"My  people  come  from  Felindre  .  .  ." 


160         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Well,  God  pity  them.  .  .  .  That's  all  I  can  say. 
I've  been  in  that  place  on  a  Christmas  Day,  and 
not  a  pint  of  beer  stirring.  .  .  .  Ah,  that's  a  black 
job.  Well,  mates,  come  on.  .  .  ." 

Again  the  men  who  had  been  listening,  lifted 
their  picks  and  spades,  and  the  busy  clinking 
sounds  of  digging  began  again.  Edwin  wished  the 
Gunner  good-afternoon,  and  began  to  push  his  bi- 
cycle up  the  hill  again.  Sixty  or  eighty  miles.  .  .  . 
That  wasn't  so  very  far.  Six  or  eight  hours'  ride. 
.  .  .  Perhaps  some  day  he  could  go  there.  He  half 
persuaded  himself  with  a  sentimental  argument 
that  it  was  only  natural  that  he  should  be  happy 
in  the  country  from  which  his  mother's  people  had 
come;  that  even  the  borderland  of  it  must  be  pos- 
sessed by  the  same  curiously  friendly  atmosphere. 
"I'm  always  most  happy  west  of  Severn,"  he 
thought.  And  then  he  began  to  wonder  about  the 
sailor  whom  the  men  called  Gunner.  Perhaps  that 
man  had  actually  been  in  Africa.  .  .  . 

He  managed  to  get  a  sixpenny  tea  at  a  little 
general  shop  on  the  very  crown  of  the  hills,  where 
a  small  hamlet  named  Far  Forest  stood.  The  ro- 
mantic name  of  the  place  appealed  to  him;  and  it 
was  a  curious  adventure  to  sit  down  alone  to  tea 
in  a  back  room  that  smelt  of  candles  and  paraffin 
and  bacon.  At  the  shop  door  a  serious  old  man 
with  a  white  beard  had  received  him;  but  the  tea 
was  brought  to  him  by  a  little  girl  in  an  extremely 
clean  pinafore  whom  the  old  man  addressed  as 
Eva. 

She  was  a  curious  mixture  of  shyness  and  friend- 
liness, and  her  serious  eyes  examined  Edwin  mi- 


THRENODY  161 

nutely  from  under  straight  dark  eyebrows.  When 
she  came  in  with  the  tea  she  found  Edwin  examin- 
ing some  books  that  stood  in  a  cupboard  with  a 
glass  door.  Evidently  she  was  very  proud  of  them. 

"They  are  my  brother  James's  prizes,"  she  said, 
and  went  on  to  explain  how  clever  he  was  and  what 
a  scholar,  until  the  old  man  called  "Eva,"  and  she 
returned  to  him  in  the  shop.  It  was  all  amazingly 
peaceful,  with  the  westering  sun  flooding  the  door- 
way where  the  old  man  had  been  sitting  out  in  a 
chair  when  Edwin  arrived :  and  opposite  the  door 
was  a  little  patch  of  green  strewn  with  mossy  bould- 
ers, a  kind  of  platform  in  front  of  which  the  huge 
panorama  of  Clee  and  all  the  Radnor  hills  ex- 
panded. 

"In  a  place  like  this,"  Edwin  thought,  "people 
never  change."  It  was  a  ripping,  placid  sort  of 
existence,  in  which  nothing  ever  happened,  but  all 
things  were  just  simple  and  serious  and  tender  like 
the  eyes  of  the  little  girl  named  Eva  who  had 
brought  him  his  tea.  "Good-evening,  sir,"  said  the 
old  man  at  the  door.  It  was  rather  nice  to  be 
called  "Sir."  Coasting  down  the  hill  into  Bewdley, 
Edwin  had  all  the  joy  of  the  state  that  he  called 
"the  after-tea  feeling."  It  was  exhilarating  and 
splendid :  and  at  the  end  of  it  came  the  misty  river 
town  with  its  stone  bridge  and  the  great  river  of 
the  Marches  swirling  proudly  to  the  south.  When 
he  neared  home,  divinely  tired  and  hungry,  the 
black-country  stretched  before  him  in  a  galaxy  of 
starry  lights.  As  he  crossed  the  brow  of  the  hill 
above  Halesby,  the  Willis'  Mawne  furnaces  sud- 
denly lit  the  sky  with  a  great  flower  of  fire. 


162         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

n 

At  home,  Auntie  Laura  was  in  possession. 
Evidently  she  was  primed  with  serious  business; 
for  Edwin  could  see  that  his  father  sat  spiritually, 
if  not  physically,  pinioned  in  the  plush  arm-chair. 
Aunt  Laura  wore  an  air  of  overpowering  satisfac- 
tion. Evidently  she  had  already  triumphed,  and 
she  smiled  so  cheerfully  at  Edwin  that  he  felt  con- 
vinced that  she  had  scored  him  off  in  some  way. 
On  the  side  of  the  fire  opposite  to  his  father  Uncle 
Albert  sat  smoking,  not  as  if  he  enjoyed  it,  but 
because  it  gave  him  the  excuse  of  an  occupation 
into  which  he  might  relapse  in  moments  of  tension. 

"Well,  here  he  is  at  last,"  said  Aunt  Laura. 
"We've  been  talking  about  you,  Edwin." 

Edwin  had  guessed  as  much. 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  he  said,  and  his  tone  implied 
that  he  was  certain  that  some  dark  scheme  had  been 
launched  against  his  peace  of  mind.  Uncle  Albert 
puffed  uncomfortably  at  his  pipe  and  nicotine  or 
saliva  made  a  gurgling  noise  in  it.  Mr.  Ingleby 
sighed.  Aunt  Laura,  tumbling  to  the  hostility  of 
the  new  atmosphere,  hastened  to  propitiate. 

"I  expect  you're  hungry,  Edwin,"  she  said.  .  .  . 

"No.  .  .  .  I'm  not  hungry,  thanks.    What  is  it?" 

"You  needn't  be  cross,  Edwin.  .  .  .  We've  de- 
cided. .  .  ."  So  it  was  all  arranged.  .  .  .  "We've 
decided  that  your  father  must  go  away  for  a  rest 
...  a  little  holiday.  .  .  ." 

"Yes.  .  .  .  And  that  means,  of  course,  that  we 
shall  have  to  shut  up  the  house  until  he  returns, 
and  of  course  that  will  be  quite  easy,  because  it's 


THRENODY  163 

time  you  were  getting  back  to  St.  Luke's.  We 
thought  you  had  better  go  on  Monday." 

"Monday?"     It  was  now  Saturday. 

"Yes.  .  .  .  Monday.  It  is  fortunate  that  your 
uncle  has  to  go  into  North  Bromwich  on  business 
that  day.  .  .  ." 

"Yes. . . .  Yes. . . .  Business,"  put  in  Uncle  Albert, 
as  though  he  were  anxious  to  explain  that  his  visit 
to  that  sink  of  iniquity  was  in  no  way  connected 
with  pleasure. 

Edwin  burned  with  sudden  and  quite  unreason- 
able indignation. 

"And  you  agreed  to  this,  father?" 

"Yes.  .  .  .  Of  course  I  agreed.  Your  aunt  is  quite 
right.  I  am  overtired.  It  was  a  terrible  strain. 
And  the  doctor  suggested  that  my  native  air.  .  .  ." 

"Oh  ...  I  don't  mean  that,"  said  Edwin.  "I 
mean  about  St.  Luke's  ...  I  can't  go  back  now 
...  of  course  I  can't  .  .  ." 

"Don't  be  ridiculous  and  childish,  Edwin,"  said 
Aunt  Laura  severely.  "You  don't  imagine  just  be- 
cause"— with  a  hushed  and  melancholy  inflection — 
"this  .  .  .  has  happened,  you're  never  going  to 
school  again?" 

"No.  ...  I  don't  mean  that.  Of  course  I  don't. 
Only  .  .  .  only  the  term  is  nearly  over.  In  an- 
other fortnight  all  the  chaps  will  be  going  away 
for  the  hols.  It  isn't  worth  it.  I  should  feel  .  .  ." 

"We  weren't  considering  your  feelings  so  much 
as  your  good,"  said  Aunt  Laura  complacently. 

"Father  .  .  .  father  .  .  .  you  can't  mean  it.  You 
see.  ...  I  don't  know.  ...  it  would  all  be  so 
strange.  So  awfully  difficult.  I  should  have  lost 


164         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

touch  with  all  the  work  the  form  was  doing.  I 
shouldn't  be  able  to  pick  it  up.  It's  rotten  .  .  . 
rotten  .  .  ." 

"Edwin,  you  will  distress  your  father  .  .  ." 

"Oh,  Aunt  Laura,  do  let  father  speak  for  him- 
self." 

Immense  volumes  of  yellow  smoke  signalled 
Uncle  Albert's  distress. 

"Father  .  .  ." 

"It's  difficult,  Edwin  .  .  ." 

"But  it  isn't  difficult,  father,  dear.  Aunt  Laura 
doesn't  realise.  She  doesn't  realise  what  it  would 
be  like  going  back  like  that  to  St.  Luke's.  It  would 
only  be  waste  of  time.  Father,  I'd  read  during  the 
hols.  ...  I  would,  really.  It  isn't  that  I  want 
to  get  out  of  going  back  to  work.  It  isn't  that  a 
bit.  I'd  work  like  blazes.  Only  .  .  .  only  every- 
thing now  seems  to  have  gone  funny  and  empty 
.  .  .  sort  of  blank.  I  ...  I  feel  awful  without 
mother  .  .  ." 

"Edwin  .  .  ."  warningly,  from  Aunt  Laura. 

That  Aunt  Laura  should  presume  to  correct  him 
in  a  matter  of  delicacy!  "Of  course  you  don't  un- 
derstand," he  said  bitterly.  "You  don't  want  me 
to  speak  about  mother.  You've  had  your  excite- 
ment out  of  it.  You've  had  your  chance  of  bossing 
round,  and  now  you  want  to  arrange  what  I  shall 
do  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  I  suppose.  '  You've  no 
...  no  reverence." 

He  was  really  very  angry.  It  was  always  difficult 
for  him  to  be  anything  else  with  Aunt  Laura ;  for  he 
felt  that  it  was  somehow  horribly  unjust  for  her 
to  be  alive  when  his  mother  was  dead,  and  he  could 


THRENODY  165 

never,  never  forget  what  his  darling  had  told  him 
of  her  stupid  jealousy.  On  this  occasion  Aunt 
Laura  seemed  to  be  less  disturbed  than  usual  by 
his  violence.  She  spoke  with  a  calculated  coolness 
that  compelled  the  admiration  of  her  husband,  sit- 
ting very  uncomfortably  on  the  edge  of  the  storm, 
desperately  anxious  to  show  that  without  his  tak- 
ing sides  his  wife  could  rely  on  his  support. 

"It's  funny,  Edwin,"  said  Aunt  Laura,  stroking 
her  black  skirt,  "that  you  should  use  the  word 
Keverence.  ...  It  reminds  me  of  something  that  I 
wanted  to  speak  to  you  about.  You  realise,  don't 
you,  that  we  are  all  supposed  to  be  .in  mourning? 
And  yet,  day  after  day,  I  see  you  going  down  the 
town  in  a  pair  of  white  canvas  gym.  shoes. 
White.  .  .  !  Now,  you  mustn't  talk  to  me  about 
reverence,  Edwin." 

Edwin  burst  out  laughing.  It  was  no  good  argu- 
ing with  the  woman.  He  gave  a  despairing  glance 
at  his  father.  Was  it  possible  that  the  man  could 
listen  seriously  to  superficial  cant  of  this  kind?  Was 
it  possible  that  he  could  tolerate  the  woman's  pres- 
ence in  the  house?  He  looked,  and  he  saw  nothing 
but  tiredness  and  desolation  in  the  man's  face.  He 
saw  that  in  reality  his  father  was  too  tired  for 
anything  but  compromise.  All  life,  all  determina- 
tion had  been  stamped  out  of  him,  and  though 
Edwin  clutched  at  the  sympathy  which  he  knew 
must  be  concealed  in  the  man's  mind,  he  began  to 
realise  that,  after  all,  circumstances ,  had  left  the 
whole  household  curiously  dependent  on  Aunt 
Laura;  that  without  her  the  whole  domestic  ma- 
chine would  collapse,  and  that,  therefore,  the  in- 


i66         ,THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

fliction  must  be  suffered  patiently.  Edwin  deter- 
mined to  leave  the  matter  where  it  stood,  but  Aunt 
Laura,  inflamed  with  approaching  triumph,  would 
not  let  it  rest.  "I  am  sure  that  you  agree  with  me, 
John,"  she  threw  out  challengingly. 

"No  doubt  Edwin  did  not  understand.  You  know 
more  about  the  people  in  the  town  than  we  do, 
Laura." 

"Compromise  .  .  ."  thought  Edwin,  "but  I  sup- 
pose it  can't  be  helped."  At  any  rate  nothing  that 
he  might  do  should  give  the  man  a  moment's  dis- 
comfort. He  possessed  himself  in  silence. 

"But  I  think,  perhaps,"  Mr.  Ingleby  went  on, 
"that  Edwin  is  right.  It  would  be  hardly  worth 
while  going  back  to  St.  Luke's  for  a  fortnight." 

"Of  course  you  know  best,  John,"  Aunt  Laura 
hurried  to  assure  him,  "but  it's  really  quite  im- 
possible for  us  to  put  him  up  while  the  house  is 
closed  and  you  are  away.  You  know  that  we've 
arranged  to  have  the  painters  in." 

On  a  matter  of  fact,  and  one  outside  controversy, 
Uncle  Albert  felt  that  he  was  safe  in  giving  his 
support. 

"I  quite  understand  that,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby,  "but 
it's  a  simple  matter.  Edwin  can  come  with  me." 

"Oh,  father,  how  wonderful!" 

"Well,  of  course,"  said  Aunt  Laura,  "if  he  won't 
be  a  nuisance  to  you.  .  .  ."  But  Edwin  was  too 
pleased  and  excited  to  mind  what  she  said.  He 
kissed  his  father,  and  Mr.  Ingleby,  with  a  curious 
tenderness,  clasped  his  arm.  It  seemed  that  catas- 
trophe had  strange  uses.  Already  it  had  thrown 
the  ordinary  course  of  life  into  more  than  one  curi- 


THRENODY  167 

cms  byway,  and  now,  behold,  he  was  to  embark 
upon  another  strange  adventure,  to  become  familiar 
with  another  sort  of  life.  He  determined  that  his 
duty  (whatever  that  might  be)  should  not  suffer 
by  it.  When  they  returned  from  their  holiday,  all 
through  the  summer  months,  he  would  work  like 
anything:  he  would  make  that  Balliol  scholarship 
that  had  seemed  part  of  an  indefinite  future,  as 
near  a  certainty  as  made  no  matter.  He  would 
show  them — in  other  words  Aunt  Laura  and  Uncle 
Albert — what  he  could  do. 

"If  we  are  going  on  Monday  I  had  better  think 
of  packing,"  he  said.  "Shall  I  need  to  take  many 
things,  father?" 

"Oh,  don't  worry  your  father,  Edwin,"  said  Aunt 
Laura. 

m 

Sunday  came  with  its  usual  toll  of  dreariness. 
The  customary  penance  of  the  morning  service  was 
actually  the  least  trying  part  of  it  to  Edwin.  To 
begin  with,  the  parish  church  of  Halesby  was  a 
structure  of  great  beauty.  Originally  an  offshoot 
of  the  abbey  that  now  stood  in  ruins  above  the  long 
string  of  slowly  silting  fishponds  on  the  Stour,  the 
grace  and  ingenuity  of  successive  ages  of  priestly 
architects  had  embellished  its  original  design  with 
many  beautiful  features,  and  the  slender  beauty 
of  its  spire,  crowning  a  steep  bank  above  the  de- 
graded river,  had  imposed  an  atmosphere  of  dignity 
and  rest  upon  the  rather  squalid  surroundings  of 
this  last  of  the  black-country  towns.  The  music, 
even  though  it  was  not  in  any  way  comparable  with 


i68         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

that  of  St.  Luke's,  was  good,  and  the  recent  arrival 
of  a  young  and  distinguished  rector  from  Cam- 
bridge, whose  voice  and  person  would  have  qualified 
him  for  success  as  a  bishop,  or  an  actor  manager, 
had  restored  to  the  building  some  of  its  popularity 
as  a  place  of  resort  or  of  escape  from  the  shuttered 
Sunday  streets. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  fine  peal  of  bells  filled  the  air 
with  an  inspiriting  music.  Edwin  remembered, 
hearing  them,  the  melancholy  with  which  they  had 
often  inspired  him  on  dank  evenings  of  autumn 
when  the  ringers  were  at  practice.  Very  different 
they  sounded  on  this  summer  morning,  for  a  gentle 
wind  was  moving  from  the  hills  to  westward,  and 
chime  eddied  in  a  soft  air  that  was  clearer  than 
the  usual,  if  only  because  it  was  Sunday  and  the 
smoke  of  a  thousand  furnaces  and  chimney  stacks 
no  longer  filled  it  with  suffocation. 

At  ten-fifteen  precisely  Aunt  Laura  appeared  in 
the  dining-room,  in  a  black  silk  dress  smelling  faint- 
ly of  lavender:  a  minute  later,  Uncle  Albert,  in  a 
frock  coat,  coaxing  the  last  sweetness  from  his 
after-breakfast  pipe.  Mr.  Ingleby  also  had  ex- 
changed the  alpaca  jacket  in  which  he  had  been 
leisurely  examining  his  roses,  for  the  same  uniform. 
Uncle  Albert,  Edwin  noticed,  had  not  yet  removed 
the  deep  band  of  crape  from  his  top-hat.  As  usual, 
Aunt  Laura  appeared  a  little  flustered,  the  strain 
of  conscious  magnificence  in  her  millinery  making 
it  difficult  for  her  to  collect  her  thoughts. 

"Are  you  sure  you  have  all  the  prayer-books, 
Albert?"  she  asked  anxiously. 


THRENODY  169 

Uncle  Albert  regretfully  knocked  out  his  pipe. 
"Yes,  my  dear,"  he  said. 

"Don't  scatter  those  ashes  all  over  the  fireplace, 
Albert.  The  least  you  can  do  is  to  keep  the  room 
tidy  on  Sunday." 

"Yes,  my  dear." 

"Edwin,  have  you  got  your  prayer-book?  Why, 
boy,  you've  actually  put  on  a  grey  striped  tie.  Kun 
and  change  it  quickly.  I  don't  know  what  people 
will  think." 

Edwin,  smarting,  obeyed.  When  he  returned  the 
atmosphere  of  impatience  had  increased.  Aunt 
Laura  was  saying:  "John,  dear,  are  you  sure  that 
the  clock  is  right?  I'm  afraid  the  bells  have  stopped. 
No  .  .  .  thank  goodness,  there  they  are  again.  That's 
better,  Edwin.  Now  we  really  must  start.  You 
have  the  money  for  the  collection,  Albert?  Give 
it  to  me,  or  you'll  be  sure  to  leave  me  without  any. 
I  do  hope  we  shan't  be  late.  We  should  look  so 
prominent.  .  .  ." 

Why  should  they  look  s©  prominent?  The  ques- 
tion puzzled  Edwin  all  the  way  down  through  the 
quiet  streets.  B,ut  even  though  this  mystery  exer- 
cised his  mind  he  could  not  help  appreciating  the 
curious  atmosphere  of  the  route  through  which  they 
progressed:  At  the  corner  of  the  street  the  first 
familiar  thing  smote  him :  it  was  the  odour  of  stale 
spirits  and  beer  that  issued  from  between  the  closed 
doors  of  the  Bull's  Head  public-house,  behind  which 
it  had  been  secreted  ever  since  an  uproarious  clos- 
ing time  the  night  before.  Then  came  the  steep 
High  Street,  and  from  its  gutters  the  indescribable 
smell  of  vegetable  refuse  left  there  overnight  from 


170         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

the  greengrocer's  stalls.  On  an  ordinary  morning 
it  would  not  have  been  noticed,  for  the  motion  of 
wheeled  traffic  in  the  highway  and  the  sight  of 
open  shop  windows  would  have  distracted  the  at- 
tention. On  Sunday  morning,  however,  it  became 
the  most  important  thing  in  the  road,  and  seemed 
to  emphasise  the  deadness  of  the  day  in  contrast 
to  the  activities  and  dissipations  of  Saturday  night. 
It  called  attention  to  the  indubitable  sordidness  of 
the  whole  street:  the  poverty  of  its  grimy  brick: 
the  faded  lettering  above  the  shop  windows:  the 
paint  that  cracked  and  peeled  from  the  closed  shut- 
ters. On  this  morning  Halesby  was  a  squalid  and 
degraded  town.  Even  Mr.  Ingleby's  shop  in  the 
High  Street  looked  curiously  small  and  mean. 
Edwin  disliked  the  sight  of  his  own  name  printed 
over  it.  It  reminded  him  of  Griffin's  social  prej- 
udices. 

They  entered  a  small  door  in  the  transept  when 
the  last  bell  was  tolling;  and  as  they  stepped  into 
the  full  church  Edwin  realised  at  last  the  reason 
of  Aunt  Laura's  particular  anxieties.  They  were 
on  show.  This  was  the  first  occasion,  since  the 
funeral,  that  the  family  had  entered  the  church, 
and,  in  accordance  with  an  immemorial  custom,  the 
congregation  were  now  engaged  in  searching  their 
faces  and  their  clothing  for  evidences  of  the  grief 
that  was  proper  to  their  condition. 

Kneeling  in  the  conventional  opening  prayer, 
Edwin  could  see  through  his  folded  fingers  that  the 
whole  of  the  gathering  was  engaged  in  a  ghoulish 
scrutiny  of  their  party.  Now,  for  the  first  time, 
-he  realised  the  full  meaning  of  the  horror  with 


THRENODY  171 

which  his  grey  tie  had  inspired  Aunt  Laura.  He 
could  even  feel  Aunt  Laura,  who  remained  kneeling 
longer  than  usual,  wallowing  in  the  emotion  that 
her  presence  evoked.  It  was  a  rotten  business.  If 
he  could  have  dared  to  do  so  without  causing  an 
immense  scandal,  Edwin  would  have  t  got  up  and 
left  the  church.  He  saw  Aunt  Laura  glance  at  his 
father  with  a  kind  of  proprietary  air,  as  if  this 
exhibition  wrere  really  her  own  responsibility  and 
the  degree  of  interest  that  Mr.  Ingleby's  appearance 
aroused  were  to  her  credit. 

Edwin  also  looked  at  his  father.  He  wondered 
if  Mr.  Ingleby  were  in  the  least  conscious  of  the 
spectacle  to  which  he  was  contributing:  decided 
that  he  wasn't.  He  was  thankful  for  that.  It  be- 
came apparent  to  him  that,  if  the  truth  were  known, 
his  father  was  a  creature  of  the  most  astonishing 
simplicity:  a  simplicity  that  was  almost  pathetic. 
He  could  see,  he  knew  that  the  whole  church  must 
see,  that  the  man  had  suffered.  The  brutes.  .  .  . 
He  was  awfully  sorry  for  his  father.  And  he  loved 
him  for  it.  The  whole  affair  was  shameful  and  de- 
grading. Never  mind  ...  in  another  twenty-four 
hours  they  would  be  clear  of  all  this  sort  of  thing. 
It  was  something  to  be  thankful  for. 

"When  the  wicked  man  turneth  away  from  his 
wickedness  and  doeth  that  which  is  lawful  and 
right.  .  .  ."  The  rector  began  to  intone.  He  spoke 
the  words  as  though  his  whole  soul  were  behind 
them :  his  voice  vibrated  with  a  practiced  earnest- 
ness: and  all  the  time  Edwin  could  see  his  dark 
eyes  scrutinising  the  congregation  in  detail,  con- 
gratulating himself  on  the  presence  of  his  sup- 


172         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

porters,  speculating  on  the  absence  of  certain 
others.  In  the  final  cadence  of  the  sentence,  a 
masterly  modulation  that  would  have  made  you 
swear  that  his  whole  life  was  in  his  mission,  his 
eyes  swivelled  into  the  corner  where  the  Ingleby 
party  were  sitting,  and  Edwin  could  have  bet  his 
life  that  they  lighted  up  with  a  kind  of  satisfac- 
tion at  the  addition  of  this  undoubted  attraction  to 
his  morning's  entertainment.  It  even  seemed  to 
him  that  the  rector's  glances  almost  imperceptibly 
indicated  to  his  wife,  a  little  woman  of  a  pathetic 
earnestness  qualified  for  the  ultimate  bishopric 
by  a  complete  subjection  to  her  husband's  person- 
ality, the  fact  that  the  Inglebys  were  on  view. 

The  rector,  who  had  views  on  the  advantages  of 
scamping  the  drier  portions  of  the  church  service 
and  stressing  any  sentence  that  held  possibilities 
of  fruity  sentiment,  soon  got  into  his  stride.  He 
was  in  excellent  voice  that  morning,  and  on  two 
occasions  in  the  first  lesson  availed  himself  of  an 
opportunity  of  exploiting  the  emotional  break — it 
was  very  nearly  a  sob — that  had  done  so  much  to 
establish  his  reputation  in  his  early  days  at 
Halesby.  He  was  making  hay  while  the  sun  shone: 
for  in  the  confirmation  service  such  opportunities 
are  more  limited. 

Edwin  enjoyed  the  psalms.  There  was  even 
something  familiar  and  pleasant  in  the  tunes  of 
the  Cathedral  Psalter  after  the  exotic  harmonies 
of  St.  Luke's.  He  sang  the  tenor  part  (when  last 
he  remembered  singing  them  it  had  been  alto)  and 
lost  his  sense  of  his  surroundings  in  the  beauty  of 
the  words.  In  the  middle  of  them,  however,  he  be- 


THRENODY  173 

came  conscious  of  his  father  singing  too.  He  had 
never  sat  next  to  his  father  in  church  before.  His 
mother  had  always  separated  them:  and  for  this 
reason  he  had  never  before  heard  his  father  sing. 
The  result  filled  him  with  horror.  Mr.  Ingleby  had 
no  idea  of  tune  and  was  apparently  unconscious 
of  this  disability.  Edwin  reflected  how  great  an 
interest  music  had  been  in  his  mother's  life: 
realised  that  from  this  part  of  her  his  father  .must 
always  have  been  isolated  by  this  natural  barrier. 
It  was  strange.  ...  He  began  to  wonder  what 
they  really  had  in  common.  He  remembered 
Griffin.  No  ...  not  that.  .  .  . 

This  speculation  he  did  his  best  to  stifle  while 
the  rector  galloped  over  the  desert  wastes  of  the 
Litany :  but  the  kneeling  posture  was  rendered  un- 
comfortable by  the  presence  in  front  of  him  of  an 
old  maiden  lady  who  smelt  of  carraway  seeds, 
a  spice  that  Edwin  detested.  A  hymn  followed. 
Luckily,  this  time  his  father  did  not  sing.  Poor 
creature.  .  .  .  Edwin  was  now  so  ashamed  of  his 
criticism  that  he  almost  wished  he  would.  And 
then  they  settled  down  to  the  sermon. 

From  the  first  Edwin  had  decided  that  he  would 
not  listen.  The  simple  austerity  of  the  service  at 
St.  Luke's,  where  the  liturgy  was  allowed  to  unfold 
its  sonorous  splendours  for  itself,  had  bred  in  him 
a  distaste  for  the  rector's  histrionics.  So  he  did 
not  hear  them,  contenting  himself  with  a  detailed 
examination  of  such  of  the  congregation  as  were 
within  his  range.  He  saw  them  classified  in  their 
social  gradations  from  the  pompous  distinction  of 
Sir  Joseph  Hingston,  the  ironmaster,  who,  in  spite 


174         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

of  his  baronetcy,  wore  a  frock  coat  that  did  not 
differ  greatly  from  that  of  Mr.  Ingleby,  to  their 
late  maid,  dressed  in  black,  and  now  conscious  of 
the  reflected  glory  that  she  had  almost  sacrificed  by 
leaving.  And  the  thing  that  impressed  him  most 
about  this  very  various  gathering  was  their  shabbi- 
ness,  and  the  fact  that  nearly  all  of  those  whom 
he  knew  seemed  so  much  older  than  they  had  been 
when  he  last  saw  them. 

Thinking  of  the  light  and  elegance  and  cleanli- 
ness of  St.  Luke's,  it  appeared  to  him  that  Halesby 
was  indeed  a  muddy  and  obscure  backwater  and 
that  his  own  people,  sitting  in  the  pew  beside  him, 
were  in  reality  as  much  fitted  to  inhabit  it  as  all 
the  rest  of  the  shabby  congregation.  Even  the 
Willises,  his  mother's  new  friends,  whom  a  wave  of 
commercial  prosperity  had  carried  forward  into 
one  of  the  front  pews  of  the  nave  within  calcul- 
able distance  of  the  glory  of  Sir  Joseph  Kingston 
himself,  would,  have  looked  very  ordinary  folk  in 
the  chapel  at  St.  Luke's. 

He  began  to  wonder  if  Griffin,  and  more  latterly 
Aunt  Laura,  had  been  right:  whether,  after  all, 
his  mother  had  made  an  ambitious  mistake  in  send- 
ing him  to  a  public  school  when  the  ancient  founda- 
tion of  the  Halesby  Grammar  School  had  stood 
waiting  for  the  reception  of  him  and  his  kind. 
There,  in  the  fifth  row  on  the  left  of  the  nave,  sat 
Mr.  Kelly,  the  grammar  school's  head-master:  a 
swarthy  Irishman  with  a  sinister,  rather  disap- 
pointed face.  He  wasn't  at  all  Edwin's  idea  of  a 
schoolmaster.  Even  old  fat  Leeming  looked  more 
distinguished  than  that.  And  yet,  if  he  were  good 


THRENODY  175 

enough  for  the  son  of  the  opulent  Walter  Willis, 
he  must  surely  be  good  enough  for  the  son  of  an 
ordinary  Halesby  tradesman. 

For  the  greater  part  of  the  sermon  these  problems 
of  social  precedence  engaged  Edwin's  puzzled  mind. 
It  had  come  as  something  of  a  shock  to  him  to 
find  that  his  mother  came  of  a  farming  stock, 
even  though  the  farmers  had  lived  in  a  Norman 
castle  and  had  once  been  good  enough  to  bear  a 
lance  in  company  with  the  Lords  Marchers.  Ex- 
amining the  face  of  his  father,  who  appeared  to  be 
engrossed  in  the  rector's  rhetoric,  Edwin  decided 
that  his  features  were  really  far  too  distinguished 
to  belong  naturally  to  a  country  chemist.  Here, 
perhaps,  in  spite  of  present  circumstance,  lay  the 
explanation  of  his  own  indubitable  gentility.  It 
was  funny,  he  reflected,  that  he  had  never  heard 
anything  from  his  mother  about  the  origins  of  the 
Inglebys:  he  had  not  even  known  from  what  part 
of  the  country  their  stock  had  sprung,  and  this 
ignorance  made  the  expedition  on  which  they  were 
to  start  on  the  morrow  more  enthralling  than  ever. 
It  was  quite  possible  that  the  discovery  of  some 
illustrious  ancestry  might  put  him  right  with  him- 
self and  justify  his  claim  to  a  birthright  which  at 
present  seemed  rather  shadowy. 

Even  if  this  failed,  he  decided,  there  remained 
Oxford.  A  fellow  of  Balliol  (his  imagination  trav- 
elled fast)  would  have  a  right  to  hold  up  his  head 
with  any  one  in  that  congregation — Sir  Joseph 
Kingston  not  excepted — even  though  the  name  of 
the  fellow's  father  happened  to  be  printed  on  his 
toothbrush.  It  might  even  be  for  him  to  restore 


1 76         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

the  prestige  of  the  Ingleby  name.  "But  in  that 
case,"  he  thought,  "it  will  be  better  for  me  to  buy 
my  toothbrushes  somewhere  else.  .  .  ."  Even  the 
fact  that  Keats  was  a  chemist  did  not  modify  this 
determination. 

The  sermon  ended,  and  during  the  collection  a 
hymn  was  sung.  Half  an  hour  before  this,  a  gowned 
verger  had  stolen  on  tiptoe  to  the  Inglebys'  pew 
and  whispered  in  Mr.  Ingleby's  ear,  depositing  a 
wooden  plate  lined  with  velvet  under  the  seat  as 
furtively  as  if  it  were  something  of  which  he  was 
ashamed.  When  the  collection  began  Edwin's 
father  left  his  pew  and  began  to  carry  the  plate 
round  the  transept  in  which  they  were  seated. 

Edwin,  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  saw  a  glow 
of  satisfaction  spread  over  the  features  of  Aunt 
Laura.  Now,  more  than  ever,  the  depth  of  the 
family's  grief  was  to  be  demonstrated  in  the  eyes 
of  all  men.  Edwin  thought  it  was  a  rotten  shame  to 
make  his  father  collect  on  this  Sunday  of  all  Sun- 
days. The  hymn  was  a  short  one,  and  for  several 
minutes  after  it  was  finished  the  clink  of  silver 
and  the  duller  sound  of  copper  coins  was  heard  in 
every  corner  of  the  echoing  church.  Then  the  sides- 
men formed  themselves  into  a  double  file  and 
moved  singly  up  the  aisle.  First  came  Sir  Joseph 
Kingston,  erect  and  podgy,  with  his  smooth  grey 
waistcoat  in  front  of  him  like  the  breast  of  a  pouter 
pigeon.  Mr.  Willis,  of  Mawne,  with  a  humbler  but 
not  unambitious  abdominal  development  followed 
him.  Edwin  conceived  a  fanciful  theory  that  when 
Mr.  Willis,  in  the  course  of  time,  should  have  grown 
as  wealthy  as  the  baronet,  there  would  be  nothing 


THRENODY  177 

: 

to  choose  between  their  profiles.  A  miserly  but 
erect  old  gentleman  named  Farr,  who  had  once 
given  Edwin  a  halfpenny,  followed  Mr.  Willis.  Last 
but  one  came  Edwin's  father,  with  the  red-bearded 
undertaker  an  eager  last. 

On  the  whole,  Edwin  was  satisfied  (as  was  ob- 
viously Aunt  Laura)  with  Mr.  Ingleby's  appear- 
ance. He  certainly  looked  more  like  the  father  of 
a  fellow  of  Balliol  than  Sir  Joseph  Kingston. 
The  money  descended  with  a  series  of  opulent 
splashes  into  the  brass  salver  that  the  rector  held 
in  front  of  the  chancel  steps:  the  organist  (in  pri- 
vate life  he  was  a  carpenter)  meanwhile  extempo- 
rising vaguely  in  the  key  of  C.  The.  rector  carried 
the  salver  arm-high  to  the  altar,  as  though  he  were 
exhibiting  to  the  Almighty  the  personal  fruits  of 
his  oratory.  Mr.  Ingleby  stole  quietly  to  his  seat 
bathed  in  the  admiring  glances  of  Aunt  Laura.  A 
short  prayer  .  .  .  "And  now  to  God  the  fath- 
er. .  .  ."  The  organist  launched  into  his  latest 
achievement:  the  Gavotte  from  Mignon. 

Outside  the  church  the  summer  sunlight  seemed 
more  exhilarating  than  ever.  It  was  worth  while, 
Edwin  thought,  to  have  suffered  the  dreariness  of 
the  morning's  service  to  experience  this  curious 
feeling  of  lightness  and  relief.  He  supposed  that 
he  was  not  alone  in  this  sensation;  for  the  crowd 
that  moved  slowly  from  the  churchyard  gates  with 
a  kind  of  gathering  resilience  was  a  happy  crowd, 
and  its  voices  that  at  first  were  hushed  soon  became 
gay  and  irresponsible  in  spite  of  the  slight  awk- 
wardness that  its  Sunday  clothes  imposed  on  it. 
No  doubt  they  were  anticipating  their  Sunday  din- 


178         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ner,  for,  as  Edwin  had  noticed,  the  liturgy  of  the 
Church  of  England  has  some  value  as  an  aperitif. 
Even  Aunt  Laura  was  full  of  a  subdued  playful- 
ness. "What  a  shame,  Albert,"  she  said,  "that  the 
rector  didn't  appoint  you  to  collect  to-day."  She 
patted  his  arm. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,  my  dear.  ...  It  wasn't  my 
turn,  you  know." 

"Oh,  I  know  that,"  said  Aunt  Laura,  "but  on  a 
day  like  this  it  would  have  been  rather  a  delicate 
compliment.  I  must  speak  to  the  rector  about  it." 

"I  don't  think  I  should  do  that,"  said  Uncle  Al- 
bert, with  some  alarm. 

She  laughed  gently.  "Don't  be  an  old  juggins," 
she  said. 

All  down  the  High  Street,  in  the  moving  crowd, 
Edwin  could  smell  the  savour  of  roast  beef  and 
baked  potatoes  and  cabbage  water  wafted  from 
innumerable  kitchen  windows.  , 


IV 

In  the  afternoon  they  left  Aunt  Laura  and  Uncle 
Albert  asleep  in  two  arm-chairs  on  opposite  sides 
of  the  drawing-room  fireplace,  and  Edwin  and  his 
father  went  for  a  walk  by  the  old  abbey  fish-ponds. 
It  was  the  first  time  for  many  years  that  Edwin 
had  been  for  a  walk  with  his  father,  and  the  experii 
ence  promised  a  new  and  exciting  intimacy  to  which 
he  looked  forward  with  eagerness. 

Even  at  this  hour  of  the  day  the  Sabbath 
atmosphere  imposed  itself  on  the  countryside.  The 
road  that  they  followed  was  long  and  straight 


THRENODY  179 

with  an  open  frontage  above  the  reedy  pools,  and 
along  the  cinder  path  at  the  side  of  it  a  great  num- 
ber of  men  were  lounging:  a  strange  and  foreign 
population  of  miners  from  the  Mawne  pits,  who 
only  emerged  from  their  cavernous  occupation  on 
this  day  of  the  week,  and  other  industrial  workers 
from  the  great  steel  rolling  mills  that  lay  in  the 
Stour  Valley  to  westward. 

None  of  them  took  any  notice  of  Edwin  and  his 
father.  It  was  even  doubtful  if  they  knew  who 
they  were;  for  these  men  passed  a  curiously  sepa- 
rate existence,  and  Mr.  Ingleby  would  only  be 
familiar  to  their  wives  who  did  the  family  shopping 
on  Saturday  nights  while  their  masters  were  wait- 
ing for  the  football  results  in  their  favourite  pubs. 
On  this  day  the  miner's  passion  for  sport  of  all 
kinds  asserted  itself  in  the  presence  of  a  great 
number  of  slim,  jacketed  whippets,  each  warranted 
to  beat  anything  on  four  legs  for  speed,  slinking 
tenderly  at  their  masters'  heels. 

It  seemed  strange  to  Edwin  that  his  father 
should  know  none  of  these  men.  It  showed  him 
again  how  remote  and  solitary  the  man's  life  must 
have  been  in  this  ultimate  corner  of  the  Black 
Country.  "We  don't  really  belong  here,"  he 
thought.  "We're  foreigners.  .  .  ."  And  the  reflec- 
tion pleased  him,  though  he  remembered,  with  a 
tinge  of  regret,  that  by  this  denial  he  dissociated 
himself  from  his  old  idol  the  poet  of  the  Pastoral 
Ballad. 

Soon  they  left  the  cinder  path  behind,  and 
plunged  into  a  green  lane  descending  to  a  water- 
mill,  turned  by  the  tawny  Stour,  as  yet  unsullied 


i8o         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

by  the  refuse  of  factories.  At  a  sandstone  bridge, 
whose  parapet  was  deeply  carved  with  the  initials 
of  lovers  long  since  dead  or  disillusioned,  they 
paused,  and,  for  the  first  time,  began  to  talk. 

"It's  a  funny  thing,  father,"  Edwin  said,  "but  I 
don't  even  know  where  we  are  going  to-mor- 
row. .  .  ." 

Mr.  Ingleby  smiled.  "Don't  you,  Edwin?  Well, 
the  doctor  said  it  would  be  best  for  me  to  go  to  my 
native  air ;  and  it  struck  me  as  rather  a  good  plan. 
I  never  went  there  with  your  mother.  It  belonged 
to  another  life.  It  is  quite  twenty  years  since  I 
have  been  in  Somerset." 

"Somerset  .  .  .  ?  I  didn't  even  know  it  was 
Somerset." 

"No.  .  .  .  Well,  as  I  say,  it  was  another  world." 

Somerset.  .  .  .  Edwin's  imagination  began  to 
play  with  the  word.  He  could  remember  very 
little:  only  a  huge  green  county  sprawling  on  a 
map  with  rivers  .  .  .  yes,  and  hills.  A  county 
stretched  beside  the  Severn  Sea.  The  Severn  again ! 
A  western  county.  Cheddar  cheese.  Lorna  Doone. 
Cider.  Coleridge.  Sedgemoor. 

"But  what  part  of  Somerset?" 

"The  eastern  end." 

That  was  a  pity.    The  farther  west  the  better. 

"I  suppose  it's  rather  a  flat  county?" 

"A  great  part  of  it.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  Men- 
dip? 

"  'The  rugged  miners  poured  to  war 
From  Mendip's  sunless  caves.' " 


THRENODY  181 

"Yes,  of  course.  .  .  ." 

"I  came  from  a  li&le  village  on  the  top  of  Mendip. 
Twenty  years  ago  it  was  decaying.  Now  I  expect 
there's  next  to  nothing  left  of  it.  Twenty  years 
makes  a  lot  of  difference.  It's  made  a  lot  of  dif- 
ference to  me." 

"And  what  was  the  name  of  the  village?" 
"I  don't  suppose  you  will  ever  have  heard  it. 
It  was  called  Highberrow." 

"Highberrow  .  .  .  no.    It's  a  jolly  name." 
"I  don't  think  it  ever  struck  me  in  that  light." 
"Highberrow  ...  is  it  right  in  the  hills?" 
"Yes  .  .  .  quite  high   up.     I  don't  know   how 
many  hundreds  of   feet.    I  wasn't  interested  in 
that  sort  of  thing  then.  It  lies  right  under  Axdown, 
the  highest  point  of  the  range.    On  a  clear  day  you 
can  see  right  over  the  Bristol  Channel  into  Wales. 
All  the  mountains  there.     The  Brecon  Beacons. 
The  Sugarloaf.    The  Black  Mountain." 

"The  Black  Mountain.  But  how  strange.  Why, 
when  you  were  a  little  boy  you  must  have  been 
nearly  able  to  see  the  place  where  mother  lived. 
With  a  big  sea  between.  It  must  have  been  won- 
derful .  .  ." 

"Yes  ...  I  suppose  it  was.  I  scarcely  remem- 
ber. Look  right  down  in  that  deep  pool.  That's  a 
trout." 

"A  trout.  .  .  .  Where?  Do  show  me  .  .  ." 
The  vision  of  Mendip  faded  instantly,  and  Edwin 
only  saw  the  rufous  sands  of  the  pool  beneath  the 
bridge,  and  in  it  a  shadowy  elongated  figure  with 
its  head  to  the  slow  stream  and  faintly  quivering 
fins.  In  Devonshire,  Widdup  had  told  him,  the 


182         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

rivers  swarmed  with  trout:  you  could  catch  them 
all  day  long  if  you  wanted  to,  and  Edwin,  loyal 
to  his  own  county's  excellences,  had  only  been  able 
to  produce  the  silvery  roach  of  the  millpool,  shoal- 
ing round  the  water-lilies  and  the  mythical  legend 
of  carnivorous  pike  lurking  in  Mr.  Willis's  ponds 
in  the  Holloway.  He  wished  he  had  known  that 
there  were  veritable  trout  in  the  Stour.  Now  it 
was  too  late  to  do  anything;  but  when  they  re- 
turned from  their  holiday,  he  determined  that  he 
would  catch  this  shadowy  creature,  even  if  he  had 
to  induce  it  to  gorge  a  worm.  Still,  it  was  quite 
possible  that  by  the  time  he  returned  he  would 
have  captured  many  trout.  For  Somerset  lay  next 
to  Devon  on  the  map. 

"Are  there  many  trout  in  Mendip?"  he  asked. 

"No.  .  .  .  There  is  only  one  river  of  any  size. 
The  Ax,  that  runs  underground  and  comes  out  of 
Axcombe  gorge,  and  there  are  practically  no  trout 
in  the  Ax.  It's  a  dry  country.  Limestone.  Very 
barren  too." 

That  didn't  really  matter.  In  a  day  or  two  Ed- 
win would  be  able  to  see  for  himself.  On  their  way 
home  they  spoke  very  little.  His  father  seemed  to 
find  it  difficult  to  talk  to  him ;  and  in  a  little  while 
Edwin  became  conscious  of  his  own  unending 
string  of  questions  that  led  nowhere. 

But  all  that  night  he  dreamed  of  Mendip.  A 
vast,  barren,  mountain^country,  his  dreams  pic- 
tured it ;  waterless,  and  honeycombed  with  the  dark 
caves  from  which  Macaulay's  miners  had  poured 
to  war;  a  deserted  countryside  full  of  broken  vil- 
lages and  bounded  by  steep  cliffs  against  which  the 


THRENODY  183 

isolating  waters  of  the  Severn  Sea  broke  in  a  sound- 
less tumult.  And  there  Ax,  the  sacred  river,  ran 
through  caverns  measureless  to  man.  A  fluent 
gentleman  with  a  noble  brow  and  burning  grey 
eyes  pointed  out  the  course  of  the  river  to  him.  He 
was  the  only  other  soul  beside  Edwin  and  his 
father,  in  all  that  desert  country,  and  Edwin  intro- 
duced him  to  Mr.  Ingleby  as  Mr.  Coleridge — rather 
diffidently,  for  he  was  not  sure  how  the  poet  would 
take  it  until  he  remembered  and  explained  that 
Keats  was  a  chemist.  There,  on  the  high  crown  of 
Axdown,  his  mother  joined  them.  She,  it  seemed, 
was  not  afraid  of  Mr.  Coleridge.  She  took  his  arm 
so  familiarly  that  Edwin  trembled  for  her;  but  the 
poet  only  smiled,  while  she  pointed  out  to  him  a 
mass  of  huge  fantastic  mountains  ranged  beyoncl 
the  gleaming  sea.  "You've  got  to  look  over  there," 
she  said.  "You  see  that  level  ridge  dropping  sud 
denly?  Well,  it's  the  third  farm  from  the  end. 
Can  you  see  the  little  bedroom  window  on  the  ex- 
treme left?  .  .  .  quite  a  little  window?"  Coleridge 
nodded,  and  Mr.  Ingleby,  too,  shielded  his  eyes 
with  his  hands  and  looked.  "It  was  my  last  chance 
of  showing  it  to  you,"  she  said. 

"But  there  are  practically  no  trout  in  the  Alph," 
said  Coleridge. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  THRESHOLD 


/in  HE  next  evening,  when  Edwin  and  his  father 
JL  reached  Bristol,  a  steady  drizzle  had  set  in 
from  the  west.  They  pushed  their  bicycles  out  of 
the  station  yard  at  Temple  Meads  and  rode  be- 
tween slippery  tramway  lines  towards  a  small 
hotel,  a  stone's-throw  from  Bristol  Bridge,  where 
Mr.  Ingleby  had  decided  to  put  up  for  the  night. 
"It's  no  use  trying  to  ride  on  to  Wringford  this  eve- 
ning," he  said,  "for  the  wind  will  be  against  us  and 
it's  collar  work  most  of  the  way.  I  think  we  can 
be  comfortable  here  to-night.  I  used  to  know  the 
landlord  of  this  place.  He  was  a  Mendip  man." 

The  Mendip  landlord,  of  course,  had  been  dead 
for  many  years,  having  made  his  descent  by  the 
route  that  is  particularly  easy  for  licensed  victual- 
lers; but  it  happened  that  his  daughter  had  mar- 
ried the  new  tenant,  and  this  woman,  a  comfortable 
creature  who  spoke  with  the  slight  burr  that  ap- 
peared in  Mr.  Ingleby's  speech  in  times  of  anger 
or  any  other  violent  emotion,  welcomed  them  for 
her  father's  sake,  and  gave  them  a  bare  but  cleanly 
room  on  the  second  story. 

The  windows  of  this  room  looked  down  obliquely 
184 


THE  THRESHOLD  185 

on  to  the  tidal  basin  of  the  Avon,  thronged  with 
small  coasting  tramps  and  sailing  ships:  and  Ed- 
win was  content  to  stay  there  watching  them;  for 
he  had  never  seen  the  traffic  of  a  harbour  before. 
It  was  still  too  wet  to  think  of  going  out  on  to  the 
quays;  but  even  from  a  distance  the  misty  spec- 
tacle, enveloped  in  veils  of  driving  rain,  was  ro- 
mantic. 

Edwin  watched  while  a  pair  of  busy  tugboats 
pushed  and  pulled  and  worried  the  hull  of  a  wooden 
schooner  in  to  mid-stream.  The  water  was  high, 
and  she  was  due  to  catch  the  falling  tide  to  Avon- 
mouth.  Whither  was  she  bound?  He  did  not  know. 
Perhaps  her  way  lay  down  channel  to  pick  up 
a  cargo  of  bricks  from  Bridgewater.  Perhaps  she 
was  setting  out  at  that  moment  to  essay  the  icy 
passage  of  the  Horn.  Perhaps,  in  another  four 
months,  she  would  have  doubled  the  Cape  and  lie 
wallowing  in  the  torpid  seas  about  Zanzibar.  It 
inspired  Edwin  to  think  that  he  was  standing  at 
one  of  the  gateways  of  the  world.  From  the  site 
of  the  stone  bridge  above  their  lodging,  just  four 
hundred  years  ago,  the  Venetian  pilot,  Cabot,  had 
cast  loose  in  the  selfsame  way,  and  sailed  westward 
with  his  three  sons,  Lewes,  Sebastyan,  and  Sancto, 
to  the  mainland  of  unknown  America.  To-day, 
from  the  same  wet  quays,  other  adventurous  prows 
were  stretching  forth  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  To 
China  ...  To  Africa.  Here  begins  the  sea  that 
ends  not  till  the  world's  end. 

With  his  accustomed  curiosity  as  to  the  origins 
of  his  own  emotions  Edwin  was  not  long  in  deciding 
that  his  growing  eagerness  to  see  the  beauty  and 


i86         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

strangeness  of  the  world  must  have  sprung  from 
the  fact  that  his  ancestors  had  lived  upon  the 
shores  of  this  great  waterway.  From  Highberrow, 
his  father  had  told  him,  you  could  see  the  whole 
expanse  of  the  Bristol  Channel.  From  Highber- 
row,  perhaps,  some  forbear  of  his  own  had  watched 
the  caravels  of  Cabot  setting  down  channel  with 
the  ebb  tide.  He  was  bewildered  with  the  splen- 
dour of  his  heritage.  It  was  impossible  to  imagine 
that  Sir  Joseph  Kingston's  family  had  the  least 
share  in  such  a  romantic  past. 

In  the  evening,  after  supper,  the  rain  ceased, 
and  Mr.  Ingleby  proposed  that  they  should  go  for 
a  walk  through  the  city.  He  had  known  it  well 
in  his  youth,  and  it  seemed  to  fill  him  with  an 
almost  childish  delight  to  show  Edwin  the  things 
that  he  remembered.  They  passed  through  many 
narrow  winding  streets  where  the  overhanging 
houses  of  the  merchant  venturers  stood,  and  an- 
cient churches  had  been  huddled  into  corners  by 
the  growing  city.  "I  remember  every  inch  of  it," 
said  Mr.  Ingleby,  with  a  happy  laugh.  Again  they 
crossed  the  river,  and  skirting  a  line  of  shipping 
warehouses,  now  cavernous  and  deserted,  they 
plunged  into  a  sordid  quarter  full  of  sailors'  drink- 
ing dens  that  smelled  of  rum,  and  marine  stores 
that  smelled  of  tar. 

"Where  are  we  going?"  Edwin  asked. 

'^You'll  see  in  a  minute,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby.  And, 
in  a  minute,  Edwin  saw. 

They  had  emerged  from  the  huddled  houses  into 
a  large  open  space,  and  in  the  midst  of  it  rose  a 
miracle  of  beauty  such  as  Edwin  had  never  seen 


•  THE  THRESHOLD  187 

before:  a  structure  too  delicate  in  its  airy  loveli- 
ness to  have  been  built  of  stone;  so  fragile  in  its 
strength  that  it  seemed  impossible  that  the  slender 
flying  buttresses  should  support  it.  The  shadowy 
spire  could  be  seen  dimly  piercing  a  sky  that  had 
been  washed  to  clearness  by  the  rain;  but  inside 
the  church,  for  some  reason  unknown,  the  lamps 
had  been  lighted,  and  the  whole  building  glowed 
as  though  it  had  been  one  immense  lantern.  There 
could  not  be  another  miracle  of  this  kind  in  the 
world,  Edwin  thought. 

He  remembered  a  white  model  of  the  Taj  Mahal 
at  Agra,  that  stood  beneath  a  dome  of  glass  in  Mrs. 
Barrow's  drawing-room,  an  intricate  carving  of 
ivory  with  a  huge  dome  and  many  fretted 
minarets.  Edwin  remembered  that  the  Taj  Mahal 
was  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world ; 
but  he  could  not  believe  that  it  was  as  beautiful 
as  this :  it  was  too  fanciful,  too  complicated  in  its 
detail,  while  this  church,  for  all  its  delicacy,  was 
so  amazingly  simple  in  its  design. 

"St.  Mary  Redcliffe,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby.  "I  al- 
ways thought  it  was  a  fine  church,  but  I  don't  think 
I  ever  saw  it  lit  up  like  this  before."  He  paused, 
and  they  gazed  at  the  church  for  a  little  while  in 
silence.  "It's  a  funny  thing,"  he  said  at  last,  "that 
a  great  master  can  sign  a  picture  and  the  name  of  a 
poet  be  remembered  by  his  writings,  while  the 
greatest  artists  of  the  Middle  Ages,  people  who 
planned  and  built  wonderful  things  like  this  .  .  . 
and  I  suppose  it  is  more  beautiful  to-day  than 
when  it  was  first  finished  .  .  .  should  be  quite  for- 
gotten. A  funny  thing.  ...  I  should  think  the 


188         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

man  who  made  this  church  must  have  devoted  his 
life  to  it." 

Edwin  glowed.  It  came  as  a  delightful  surprise 
to  him  that  his  father  should  think  of  a  thing  like 
this.  He  was  ashamed  to  confess  that  he  hadn't 
believed  him  capable  of  it.  It  was  the  sort  of 
thing  that  he  would  only  have  expected  of  hie 
mother.  "What  a  rotten  little  snob  I  am,"  he 
thought.  And  though  he  happened  to  know,  quite 
by  accident,  from  the  Rowley  Poems  of  Chatterton, 
that  the  builder  of  Kedcliffe  was  William  Cannynge, 
round  whose  shadowy  reputation  the  work  of  the 
wondrous  boy  had  grown,  he  could  not  for  the  life 
of  him  reveal  this  piece  of  learning,  since  it  would 
have  spoiled  the  originality  of  his  father's  reflec- 
tion. He  only  said,  "Yes,"  but  the  train  of  thought 
was  so  strong  in  him  that  he  couldn't  resist  asking 
Mr.  Ingleby  if  he  knew  which  was  the  muniment 
room. 

"The  muniment  room.    Why?" 

"Because  it  was  in  the  muniment  room  that 
Chatterton  pretended  that  he  found  the  Eowley 
manuscripts." 

"Chatterton?  Ah,  yes.  .  .  .  Thomas  Chatterton, 
the  poet." 

"Yes." 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  know.  I  never  read  any  of 
his  poems,  but  I  believe  he  starved  in  London  and 
committed  suicide  with  Arsenious  Oxide." 

This  gleam  of  professional  interest  tickled  Ed- 
win. Keats:  Keatings.  Chatterton:  Arsenious 
Oxide. 

"They  found  Arsenic  on  his  lips.    He  made  no 


THE  THRESHOLD  189 

mistake  about  it.  The  lethal  dose  is  a  very  small 
one.  A  grain  or  so  would  have  done  it.  Why,  it's 
beginning  to  rain  again.  We'd  better  go.  I  hope 
it  will  clear  up  by  to-morrow." 

They  walked  back  to  their  lodging  in  a  fine 
drizzle.  On  the  way  Edwin's  father  took  his  arm. 
The  action  gave  Edwin  a  curious  sensation.  It  sug- 
gested to  him  that  his  father  was  lonely;  that  the 
natural  instinct  of  love  in  the  man  was  making 
him  eager  for  some  sort  of  sympathy.  It  was 
pitiable;  for,  in  reality,  they  were  strangers  .  .  . 
there  was  no  getting  away  from  the  fact  that  they 
were  strangers. 

"I  must  make  it  easy  for  him,"  Edwin  thought. 
"However  impossible  it  may  seem,  I  must  make 
it  easy.  I  must  know  him.  I  must  love  him. 
Whatever  it  costs  I  must  love  him.  It  is  ridiculous 
that  I  should  have  to  choose  my  words  and  even 
at  times  be  a  little  dishonest  when  it  ought  to  be 
the  most  natural  and  easy  thing  in  the  world  to 
be  myself  with  him.  Of  course  it's  difficult  at 
present;  but  later  on,  when  we  know  each  other 
better,  it  will  be  all  right." 

When  they  returned  to  their  lodging  their  clothes 
were  wet,  and  they  went  together  into  the  kitchen 
of  the  defunct  publican's  daughter.  She  gave  them 
two  of  her  husband's  coats  to  wear  while  their  own 
were  drying,  and  for  a  long  time  they  sat  over  the 
fire  talking  to  her.  It  was  evident  that  though  Mr. 
Ingleby  was  himself  unknown  to  her,  she  knew 
all  about  his  family ;  for  she  asked  him  many  ques- 
tions about  various  people  in  Highberrow  and 
Wringford,  whom  they  knew  in  common.  Mr.  Ingle- 


190         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

by  could  tell  her  very  little,  but  the  landlady  was 
able  to  supply  him  with  a  lot  of  gossip  from  the 
Mendip  villages. 

"We  heard  that  you  were  married,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  replied  Mr.  Ingleby.  "But  I've  just  had 
a  great  blow.  I've  lost  my  wife." 

"Dear,  dear  .  .  .  that's  very  sad  for  'ee." 

"Yes.  ...  I  shall  never  get  over  it." 

"And  this  is  your  eldest?  My  word,  how  time 
flies!" 

"Yes.  .  .  .  He's  the  only  one." 

"To  look  at  him  at  first  you  wouldn't  say  there 
was  much  of  an  Ingleby  in  him." 

"No.    He  takes  after  his  mother's  family." 

"And  yet,  on  second  thoughts,  he's  got  a  look  of 
your  brother  William's  boy,  Joe,  about  his  eyes. 
Now  that's  a  strange  thing.  Talking  of  your 
brother  William,  I  haven't  seen  or  heard  of  him 
for  years." 

"I  haven't  seen  him  for  twenty  years  myself. 
We're  cycling  to  Wringford  to-morrow.  We  shall 
put  up  with  him," 

"Well,  remember  me  to  him.  He  was  always  a 
great  favourite  of  dad's." 

"Will's  a  good  fellow." 

"I  suppose  he's  in  the  same  place?  Mr.  Grise- 
wood  would  be  a  fool  to  get  rid  of  a  man  like  that. 
Good  gardeners  are  scarce.  ..." 

Edwin  could  not  understand  this  at  all.  It  was 
obvious  that  the  woman  must  be  making  some  mis- 
take; for  it  was  clearly  impossible  that  his  Uncle 
William  could  be  a  gardener.  Still,  his  father  of- 
fered no  protest. 


THE  THRESHOLD  191 

"They  tell  me,"  she  went  on  in  her  soft  West- 
country  voice,  "that  he've  apprenticed  that  boy  Joe 
to  Hares,  the  shoeing-smith." 

"I  didn't  know  that,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 

"Well,  of  course,  it  may  be  all  right,"  the  land- 
lady went  on,  "but  there's  always  the  future  to 
think  on.  My  husband  always  says  that  the  day 
of  the  horse  is  over.  What  with  steam  and  elec- 
tricity, and  these  new  things  that  I  see  in  the  paper 
they  are  running  from  London  to  Brighton! 
There's  a  gentleman  near  Bridgewater  who  has  one 
of  these  new  motor-cars  on  the  road.  Of  course, 
I  suppose  they  are  fairly  reliable  on  the  flat." 

Edwin  was  thankful  that  the  excitements  of 
motor  traction  had  diverted  her  from  the  uncom- 
fortable subject  of  his  cousin's  profession  ...  if 
that  were  the  right  word  to  apply  to  the  calling 
of  a  Shoeing-smith ;  but  the  matter  still  troubled 
and  bewildered  him  when  they  went  upstairs  to 
bed.  It  was  one  that  would  not  wait  for  explana- 
tion, and  so  he  tackled  his  father  as  soon  as  they 
were  alone. 

"Father,  what  was  that  woman  talking  about? 
What  did  she  mean  when  she  said  that  Uncle  Will 
was  a  gardener?" 

"What  did  she  mean?"  Mr.  Ingleby  laughed. 
"Why  she  meant  what  she  said.  He  is  a  gardener. 
He's  never  been  anything  else." 

"But,  father  .  .  .  it's  impossible." 

"It  isn't  impossible,  boy.  It's  the  truth.  Didn't 
you  know?  Didn't  mother  ever  tell  you?" 

"No.  ...  I  don't  think  she  ever  spoke  of  him. 
I  .  .1  can't  understand  it." 


192         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"You  sound  as  if  it  had  come  as  a  shock  to  you, 
Eddie." 

"No  .  .  .  yes  ...  I  suppose  it  did." 

"You  didn't  imagine  that  you'd  find  your  an- 
cestry in  Debrett,  Eddie?" 

"No  ...  but  that's  different.  It's  .  .  .  it's  sort 
of  bowled  me  over." 

Mr.  Ingleby  laughed.  It  seemed  that  he  was 
really  amused  at  Edwin's  consternation. 

"I  suppose  it's  natural  for  a  schoolboy  to  be  a 
bit  snobbish,"  he  said. 

"No  ...  it  isn't  that.  Honestly  it  isn't,  father. 
Only  I'd  kind  of  taken  us  for  granted.  I  wish  you'd 
tell  me  all  about  it.  You  see,  I  know  absolutely 
nothing." 

"It's  a  long  story,  Eddie.  But  of  course  I'll  tell 
you.  Then  you  won't  have  any  more  of  these  dis- 
tressing surprises.  Suppose  you  get  into  bed  first." 

It  was  a  strange  sight  to  Edwin  to  see  his  father 
kneel  down  in  his  Jaeger  nightgown  and  pray. 
The  boy  had  never  done  that  since  his  second  term 
at  St.  Luke's. 

n 

Lying  in  bed  with  his  father's  arm  about  him, 
Edwin  listened  to  a  long  and  strange  narration 
that  overwhelmed  him  with  alternations  of  humilia- 
tion that  made  him  ashamed,  and  of  romance  that 
thrilled  him.  Mr.  Ingleby  began  at  the  beginning. 
Their  family  had  lived,  it  appeared,  for  years  with- 
out number,  in  the  village  of  Highberrow  on  Men- 
dip  in  a  combe  beneath  the  great  camp  of  Silbury, 
and  the  calling  of  all  these  Inglebys  had  been  that 


THE  THRESHOLD  193 

of  the  other  inhabitants  of  Highberrow :  they  were 
miners,  working  for  lead  in  the  seams  that  the 
Romans,  and  perhaps  the  Phoenicians  before  them, 
had  discovered  in  the  mountain  limestone.  Even 
so  early  as  in  the  youth  of  Edwin's  father  the  in- 
dustry had  been  decaying,  for  the  traditional  meth- 
ods of  the  Mendip  miner  were  unscientific :  he  had 
been  content  to  dig  for  himself  a  shallow  working 
from  which  he  collected  enough  of  the  mineral  that 
is  called  calamine  to  keep  him  in  pocket  and  in 
drink. 

"We  Mendip  folk,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby,  "are  a 
strange  people,  very  different  in  our  physique  from 
the  broad  Saxons  of  the  turf-moors  beneath  us.  I 
suppose  there  is  a  good  deal  of  Cornish  blood  in 
us.  Wherever  there  are  mines  there  are  Cornish- 
men;  but  I  think  there's  another,  older  strain: 
Iberian  .  .  .  Roman  .  .  .  Phoenician.  I  don't  know 
what  it  is ;  but  I  do  know  that  we're  somehow  dif- 
ferent from  all  the  rest  of  the  Somerset  people:  a 
violent,  savage  sort  of  folk.  Did  you  ever  hear  of 
Hannah  More?" 

"No."  Edwin  had  been  born  too  late  in  the 
century. 

"Well,  she  was  before  my  time  too ;  but  she  made 
the  Mendip  miners  notorious  by  trying  to  convert 
them.  I  don't  suppose  she  succeeded.  At  any  rate 
neither  she  nor  her  influences  would  ever  have  con- 
verted your  grandfather.  He  was  a  wonderful  man. 
Even  though  my  memory  is  mostly  of  the  way  in 
Which  I  was  afraid  of  him,  I  can  see  what  a  won- 
derful man  he  was.  And  your  Uncle  Will  would 
tell  you  the  same." 


I94         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"He  was  a  miner  .  .  .  ?" 

"Yes.  ...  A  miner  amongst  other  things. 
was  a  dowser  too." 

"A  dowser?    What  is  that?" 

"Don't  you  know?  The  divining-rod.  A  thing 
that  all  the  scientists  have  been  unable  to  explain. 
In  a  dry  country  like  Mendip  the  dowser  is  a  most 
important  person;  for  neither  man  nor  beast  can 
live  without  water,  and  he  is  the  only  person  who 
can  tell  where  a  well  should  be  sunk.  Your  grand- 
father was  a  strange  looking  man  with  very  clear 
grey  eyes  under  a  black  head  of  hair  and  heavy 
bristling  brows.  Even  when  he  grew  very  old  his 
hair  and  his  beard  were  black. 

"I  was  the  youngest  of  the  family.  All  the  others, 
except  your  Uncle  Will,  have  died — and  for  some 
reason  or  other  I  was  not  brought  up  in  my  father's 
cottage  but  in  that  of  my  grandmother,  a  tiny, 
tumbledown  affair  lying  in  the  valley  under  Sil- 
bury.  We  were  very  humble  people,  Eddie.  I  don't 
suppose  anywhere  in  the  world  I  could  have  passed 
a  quieter  childhood.  It's  a  long  way  off  now.  One 
only  remembers  curious,  unimportant  things. 

"When  I  was  four  years  old  I  was  sent  to  the 
village  school.  I  don't  think  it  exists  any  longer. 
You  see  the  population  of  Highberrow  disappeared 
naturally  with  the  abandonment  of  the  mining. 
Even  in  my  childhood,  as  I  told  you,  the  workings 
were  running  pretty  thin.  The  miners  were  begin- 
ning to  find  that  they  couldn't  pick  up  much  of  a 
living  on  their  own  calamine  claims;  and  so  they 
drifted  back  gradually — your  grandfather  along 
with  them — to  the  oldest  workings  of  all :  the  mines 


THE  THRESHOLD  195 

that  the  Romans  had  made  two  thousand  years  ago. 
You  may  be  certain  that  the  Romans,  with  their 
thoroughness,  hadn't  left  much  behind.  Why,  in 
their  days,  Mendip  must  have  been  a  great  place, 
with  a  harbour  of  its  own  on  the  mouth  of  the  Ax, 
and  great  roads  radiating  everywhere:  to  Ciren- 
cester,  Exeter,  and  Bath.  Even  in  the  Middle  Ages 
there  was  a  population  of  fifty  thousand  souls  on 
Mendip.  Now  I  don't  suppose  there  are  a  thou- 
sand in  all  the  mining  villages  put  together. 

"So  my  father  went  to  work  in  the  Roman  mines 
at  Cold  Harbour;  for  a  new  company  had  been 
started  that  was  reclaiming  the  sublimated  lead 
that  had  been  left  in  the  Romans'  flues.  And  there, 
as  a  little  boy,  I  used  to  carry  him  his  dinner, 
through  the  heather,  over  the  side  of  Axdown. 
You'll  see  Axdown  for  yourself  to-morrow :  a  great 
bow  of  a  hill.  There  used  to  be  a  pair  of  ravens 
that  built  there.  I've  seen  them  rising  in  great 
wide  circles.  They  seemed  very  big  to  me.  I  was 
almost  frightened  of  them;  and  when  I  found  the 
skeleton  of  a  sheep  one  day  on  the  top  of  Axdown 
under  the  barrows,  I  made  sure  that  the  ravens 
had  killed  it. 

"I  suppose  I  was  a  pretty  intelligent  boy.  I 
know  that  the  men  at  the  workings  by  Cold  Har- 
bour, where  I  took  father's  dinner,  used  to  joke 
with  me  a  good  deal.  They  used  to  like  the  way 
in  which  I  hit  back  at  them  with  my  tongue. 
Father  didn't  take  any  notice  of  it.  He  was  always 
the  same  dark,  silent  man,  with  very  few  words, 
and  no  feelings,  as  you'd  imagine,  except  the  violent 
passions  into  which  he  would  burst  out  when  he'd 


196         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

been  drinking.  He  didn't  often  drink,  though.  He 
was  a  good  man,  Eddie.  A  good  man.  .  .  .  And  so 
I  myself  came  to  work  in  the  mines." 

"I  can't  believe  it,  you  know,  father.  It's  so  un- 
like you  .  .  .  and  mother." 

"Of  course  it  was  long  before  I  knew  your 
mother.  And  it  does  seem  funny,  looking  back  on 
it.  I'm  very  glad  now,  mind  you,  that  I  had  the 
experience.  It's  a  fine  thing  for  any  man  at  some 
time  of  his  life  to  have  had  to  face  the  necessity  of 
earning  his  living  by  the  use  of  his  hands.  You'll 
never  know  what  that  means,  I  suppose.  It's  a 
pity.  .  .  . 

"Well,  while  I  was  working  at  Cold  Harbour, 
my  mother  died.  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Grannie 
had  died  some  years  before,  and  her  cottage  under 
Silbury  had  been  left  empty — there  was  no  one  liv- 
ing in  Highberrow  to  fill  it — and  was  already 
tumbling  into  ruins.  I  haven't  told  you  about  your 
grandmother, — my  mother.  I  don't  know  that  I  can 
tell  you  much.  I  think  she  was  in  some  ways  a 
little  hard.  I  don't  know.  ...  I  thought  the  world 
of  her,  and  perhaps  it  was  my  father's  difficult  na- 
ture that  made  her  seem  harder  than  she  was.  Be- 
sides, being  brought  up  with  Grannie,  I  was  a  sort 
of  stranger  to  her.  I  don't  know  how  father  came 
across  her.  There's  no  doubt  about  it,  she  was  a 
superior  woman.  If  you're  still  feeling  a  little  sore 
about  your  social  origin,  Eddie,  you  can  console 
yourself  with  the  fact  that  she  had  a  cousin  who 
was  a  solicitor — or  was  it  a  solicitor's  clerk? — 
somewhere  near  London.  At  any  rate,  poor  soul, 
she  died.  She  was  ill  for  several  months,  and  I, 


THE  THRESHOLD  197 

being  the  youngest,  had  to  stay  at  home  and  nurse 
her.  It  was  in  that  way  that  I  met  Dr.  Mar- 
shall. .  .  . 

"I'll  tell  you  about  him  in  a  moment ;  but  think- 
ing of  the  days  of  my  mother's  death  puts  me  in 
mind  of  a  strange  thing  that  happened  at  the  time 
that  will  show  you  what  sort  of  man  your  grand- 
father was.  Early  on  in  the  family  there  had  been 
a  girl  that  died  to  whom  my  mother  was  particu- 
larly devoted ;  and  a  little  before  the  end — she  knew 
that  it  couldn't  be  many  weeks — mother  told  my 
father  that  she  would  like  to  be  buried  in  a  particu- 
lar corner  of  the  churchyard  near  to  this  daughter 
of  theirs. 

"Father  never  spoke  of  it.  He  rarely  spoke  of 
anything.  But  I  suppose  he  took  it  in  all  the  same. 
Anyway,  when  she  was  dead,  the  old  sexton  came 
up  to  see  father  about  the  grave,  and  he  told  him 
where  she  had  said  she  wanted  to  lie.  The  next 
night  the  sexton  came  up  again.  I  can  see  him 
now — a  funny,  old-fashioned  little  man  with  red 
whiskers — and  said  it  couldn't  be  done,  because  the 
soil  was  so  shallow  at  that  particular  point.  I  can 
see  my  father  now.  He  hadn't  been  drinking;  but 
he  flew  suddenly  into  such  a  black  rage  that  the 
poor  little  gravedigger  (Satell  was  his  name)  ran 
out  frightened  for  his  life.  I  think  I  was  pretty 
frightened  too,  for  father  went  out  after  him  carry- 
ing one  of  the  great  iron  bars  that  the  miners  use 
for  drilling.  I  thought  for  a  moment  that  the  loss 
of  mother  had  turned  his  head.  It  hadn't.  He  just 
went  there  and  then,  in  the  night,  to  the  church- 
yard, and  worked  away  with  his  mining  tools  at 


198         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

the  rock  that  poor  old  Satell  said  he  couldn't  dig. 
He  bored  his  holes  and  he  blasted  the  rock  with 
the  black  powder  they  used  in  those  days,  and  he 
dug  my  mother's  grave  in  the  place  where  she 
wanted  it.  You  see  what  a  strange  man  he  was! 
You  may  say  what  you  like,  Eddie — I've  often 
thought  of  it  since — but  that  was  a  grandfather 
worth  having." 

"Yes  ...  he  was  worth  having,"  Edwin  agreed. 

"But  I  was  speaking  of  Dr.  Marshall,"  his  father 
continued.  "He  was  the  beginning  of  my  new  life. 
But  for  the  accident  of  my  mother's  illness  I  don't 
suppose  I  should  ever  have  met  him.  During  the 
last  month  he  came  fairly  often :  not  that  he  could 
do  much  good  for  her,  poor  thing,  but  because  she 
was — it's  a  wretched  phrase — a  superior  woman, 
and  because  no  doubt  she  liked  to  talk  to  him,  and 
he  knew  it.  Practice  in  Highberrow  can't  have 
been  very  profitable;  though  I'm  sure  that  my 
father  paid  him  every  penny  that  he  owed  him.  He 
was  that  kind  of  man. 

"And  when  she  died,  Dr.  Marshall  took  a  fancy 
to  me.  I  could  tell  you  a  good  deal  about  him  if 
it  were  worth  while.  He  was  a  physician  of  the  old 
school,  learned  in  experience  rather  than  in  books. 
It  is  probable  that  he  made  mistakes;  but  I'm 
equally  certain  that  he  learned  by  them.  The  week 
after  mother  died  he  asked  your  grandfather  if  he 
could  have  me  to  wash  bottles  and  make  myself 
generally  useful  in  his  surgery  at  Axcombe.  And 
my  father  didn't  refuse.  It  would  have  been  unlike 
him  if  he  had  done  so ;  for  I  think  his  idea  in  life 
was  to  let  every  individual  work  out  his  own  sal- 


THE  THRESHOLD  199 

vation  for  himself.  It  was  a  good  plan,  for  it  made 
the  responsibility  definite.  .  .  . 

"So  I  went  to  Axcombe  to  Dr.  Marshall's  house. 
There  was  plenty  of  hard  work  in  it.  1  think  a 
country  doctor  earns  a  poor  living  more  honestly 
than  most  men.  I  had  to  share  the  doctor's  work — • 
getting  up  early  in  the  morning  (that  was  no  hard- 
ship to  a  miner's  son) — to  clean  up  the  surgery 
(and  I  can  tell  you  it  took  some  cleaning),  to  turn 
out  of  bed  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  harness 
the  pony  if  the  message  that  called  him  took  him 
over  roads,  or  to  saddle  the  cob  if  the  hill  tracks 
were  too  rough  for  wheels. 

"Sometimes  I  had  long  night  journeys  on  my 
own;  for  the  doctor,  in  spite  of  his  practical  head 
for  dealing  with  disease,  was  curiously  unmethod- 
ical and  would  often  leave  behind  the  particular 
instrument  that  he  wanted  most,  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  a  boy  of  my  own  age  from  one  of  the 
hill  villages  would  come  battering  at  the  door  as 
though  his  life  depended  on  it.  And  they'd  go  on 
battering,  you  know,  as  if  they  thought  that  the 
sound  of  it  would  make  me  get  up  more  quickly. 
Perhaps  it  did :  at  any  rate  I  can  remember  scramb- 
ling downstairs  in  the  dark  and  reading  the  notes 
that  the  doctor  sent  by  candlelight:  and  then  I 
would  turn  out,  half  asleep,  and  walk  over  the  hills 
above  Axcombe  when  the  gorge  was  swimming  to 
the  brim  with  fine  milky  mist  and  a  single  step,  if 
one  were  silly  enough  to  go  dreaming,  would  have 
sent  one  spinning  down  a  sheer  four  hundred  feet 
like  the  hunting  king  in  the  legend.  I'm  forget- 


200         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ting  that  you  don't  know  the  legend  and  have  never 
seen  the  gorge.  .  .  . 

"Stall,  I  shall  never  forget  those  strange  night- 
journeys.  I  don't  think  I  had  begun  to  appreciate 
Mendip  until  I  walked  the  hills  at  night.  I  found 
that  I  could  think  so  clearly,  and  I  was  just 
beginning,  you  see,  to  have  so  much  to  think  about. 
Books.  .  .  . 

"At  Highberrow,  in  my  father's  cottage,  there 
were  only  two  books  altogether:  the  Bible,  and  a 
tract  by  Miss  Hannah  More  called  'The  Eeligion 
of  the  Fashionable  World.'  But  Dr.  Marshall's 
house  at  Axcombe  was  crammed  with  books:  rub- 
bish, most  of  them,  I  expect;  but  printed  books; 
and  whenever  I  was  not  working  I  was  reading. 
It  was  the  pure  excitement  of  attaining  knowledge 
of  any  kind  that  made  me  read;  and  of  course  I 
wasted  a  great  deal  of  valuable  time  in  ways  that 
were  unprofitable.  The  doctor  did  not  help  me 
much;  he  was  far  too  busy  to  worry  much  about 
my  education ;  but  I  know  that  he  approved  of  my 
eagerness,  and  liked  to  see  me  reading.  I  used  to 
sleep  in  the  loft  above  the  stable  in  those  days,  and 
I  know  that  my  candles  made  him  rather  nervous 
of  fire.  But  he  did  help  me,  in  his  own  way.  He 
put  me  on  to  a  little  Latin,  with  the  strictly  practi- 
cal idea  of  making  it  more  easy  for  me  to  dispense 
the  prescriptions  that  he  wrote  in  the  old  manner 
without  abbreviations;  and  he  also  introduced  me 
to  another  book  that  I  don't  suppose  you've  ever 
heard  of:  called  Religio  Medici  by  Sir  Thomas 
Browne." 

"I  know  it,"  said  Edwin. 


THE  THRESHOLD  201 

"Do  you?  I  supposed  it  was  merely  a  medical 
curiosity.  Latin,  he  thought,  would  be  useful  to 
me  in  other  ways.  You  see,  like  many  of  the  old 
medical  practitioners  that  spent  their  lives  in  the 
lanes,  he  was  very  interested  in  botany:  not 
scientific  botany — just  the  identification  and 
botanical  names  of  the  flowers  that  blossomed  year 
by  year  in  the  hedges.  In  the  early  summer  he 
would  drive  home  with  the  bottom  of  the  dogcart 
tangled  with  flowers  that  he  had  picked  while  he 
walked  the  pony  up  some  hill ;  and  he  would  pitch 
them  over  to  me  and  tell  me  to  learn  the  names  of 
them.  It  wasn't  very  difficult;  for  in  the  surgery- 
shelves  there  was  a  fine  set  of  Ann  Pratt  with  ex- 
cellent illustrations.  And  sometimes  he  would 
come  home  with  a  small  insect  of  some  kind  in  a 
pillbox  and  arrange  it  under  the  microscope  on  the 
table  under  the  dispensary  window;  and  he'd  say, 
'Wonderful  .  .  .  wonderful!'  not  because  he'd 
made  any  biological  observations,  but  just  because 
it  revealed  a  lot  of  unsuspected  detail. 

"It  was  a  favourite  trick  of  his  to  show  his  pa- 
tients a  sample  of  their  own  blood  corpuscles  under 
the  microscope  too.  'There  they  are,'  he'd  say,  'like 
a  pile  of  golden  guineas,  and  if  you  had  a  millionth 
part  as  many  guineas  as  you  have  of  these  in  your 
body,  you'd  be  the  richest  man  in  England.'  This 
sort  of  thing  used  to  impress  his  patient's  tremen- 
dously. And  he  knew  it.  I  suppose  it  gave  them 
confidence  in  him;  though  he  didn't  need  any 
superstitious  aids  of  this  kind.  The  whole  history 
of  his  life  as  a  doctor  should  have  been  enough  to 
make  them  trust  him.  Still,  I  suppose  it  was  the 


202         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

old  tradition  of  the  medicine  man  who  dealt  in 
curious  magic.  His  common  sense  and  the  crafts- 
manship that  he  had  won  by  experience  were  his 
real  guarantees. 

"He  was  extraordinarily  practical  in  everything 
except  money  matters.  In  these,  even  I  could  have 
taught  him  a  good  deal.  It  was  a  pathetic  sight  to 
see  him  making  out  his  bills.  He  always  put  off 
the  evil  day,  with  the  result  that  they  were  only 
sent  out  about  once  in  three  years.  I  don't  sup- 
pose doctors  can  afford  to  be  like  that  in  these 
days.  .  .  .  But  then,  what  was  the  use  of  money 
to  him?  All  his  tastes  were  simple  and  inexpensive. 
He  was  unmarried.  During  all  the  years  that  I 
was  with  him  he  never  took  a  holiday,  unless  it 
were  to  go  to  Taunton  and  buy  a  new  horse.  I 
do  not  think  there  are  many  of  his  kind  left. 

"You  can  see,  though,  what  a  huge  difference  he 
made  to  my  life.  If  I  hadn't  gone  to  live  with  him 
at  Axcombe,  I  might  still  have  been  a  miner — if 
there  are  any  miners  left  on  Mendip — or  perhaps  a 
gardener  like  your  Uncle  Will.  And  where  would 
you  have  been,  Eddie?  He  was  careful,  and  I 
think  very  wisely  careful,  not  to  turn  my  head. 
'Ambition,'  he  would  say  to  me,  'is  all  very  well 
in  moderation.  But  don't  be  too  ambitious,  John. 
Happiness  is  more  important  in  this  life  than  suc- 
cess, and  very  few  men  have  a  full  share  of  both. 
Still,  you're  a  sharp  lad,  and  there's  no  reason  why 
you  shouldn't  get  on  in  the  world  and  be  happy  too 
if  you  don't  expect  too  much/  As  time  went  on  we 
began  to  talk  a  little  about  my  future.  'Don't  be 
in  too  much  of  a  hurry,'  he  used  to  say.  'You're 


THE  THRESHOLD  203 

young,  and  there's  plenty  of  time  ahead  of  you.' 
"Of  course  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  suppose  that 
I  hadn't  ambitions.  Naturally  enough,  I  had  de- 
termined to  be  a  doctor  like  my  master.  The  small 
things  that  I  did  for  him  convinced  me  that  it  would 
be  an  easy  matter.  When  he  was  out  in  the  coun- 
try people  who  had  walked  in  from  remote  villages 
would  ask  me  to  prescribe  for  them,  and  sometimes, 
with  an  immense  sense  of  importance,  I  would  do 
so.  It  wasn't  difficult.  He  ran  his  practice,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  on  three  stock  mixtures  and 
half  a  dozen  pills.  But  I  shall  never  forget  one 
evening  when  one  of  my  father's  fellow  workmen 
from  Highberrow  came  in  with  a  raging  toothache, 
and  I,  being  anxious  to  show  off,  volunteered  to 
take  the  tooth  out  for  him.  I  remember  I  showed 
him  a  microscopic  sample  of  his  own  blood  as  a 
preliminary.  But  when  I  came  to  take  out  the 
tooth  I  made  a  mess  of  it.  He  was  a  tremendous 
big  fellow  with  jaws  like  steel,  and  though  I  pulled 
hard  enough  to  move  him  in  the  chair,  I  only  suc- 
ceeded in  breaking  the  tooth  and  making  the  pain 
worse.  I  got  my  head  well  smacked  for  my  trouble, 
and  decided  that  whatever  else  I  were  to  be,  I 
wouldn't  risk  dentistry  as  a  career. 

"  'There's  no  reason,'  the  doctor  would  say,  'why 
you  shouldn't  make  a  good  chemist  in  time.'  Of 
course  that  seemed  a  very  small  thing  to  me;  and 
yet  .  .  .  think  what  I  might  have  been !  I  was  six- 
teen, just  your  own  age,  Eddie,  when  he  died.  Of 
course  he  killed  himself,  as  many  doctors  do,  with 
work.  People  make  a  great  fuss  when  a  mission- 
ary in  some  outlandish  country  lays  down  his  life, 


204         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

as  they  call  it,  for  his  flock.  But  country  doctors 
are  doing  that  every  month  in  the  year  all  over 
England — I  don't  mean  the  social  successes  in  Har- 
ley  Street — and  from  what  I've  seen  of  it  their 
widows  can't  count  on  much  gratitude. 

"It  was  a  hard  winter  .  .  .  the  year  eighteen 
sixty-seven  .  .  .  and  there  happened  to  be  a  great 
deal  of  illness  in  the  hills.  We  were  worked  pretty 
hard,  both  of  us,  but  the  doctor  had  no  chance  of 
taking  a  rest :  he  was  the  only  medical  man  living 
within  ten  miles:  and  in  the  end  he,  too,  caught  a 
heavy  cold,  and  had  to  go  on  working  through  it. 
In  the  end  he  had  to  give  up.  It  was  pneumonia ; 
and  the  last  thing  he  did  was  to  write  a  letter  ask- 
ing a  consultant  in  Bristol  to  come  down  and  see 
him.  He  was  a  kindly  man,  but  I  suppose  Dr. 
Marshall  was  to  him  only  a  case.  The  old  fellow 
refused  to  have  any  one  but  me  to  nurse  him.  'John 
and  I  understand  each  other,'  he  said. 

"It  was  a  terrible  battle:  to  see  a  great  strong 
man  like  that  fighting  for  breath.  They  didn't  give 
oxygen  in  those  days.  It  went  on  for  four  days 
and  on  the  fifth,  or  rather  in  the  middle  of  the 
night — he  called  to  me  faintly,  and  I  found  him 
lying  on  his  back  breathing  more  softly,  very  pale 
and  drenched  with  sweat,  'This  is  the  crisis  .  .  . 
fifth  day  .  .  .'  he  said.  He  told  me  to  cover  him 
with  all  the  blankets  I  could  find,  to  give  him  some 
brandy,  and  to  take  his  temperature.  It  was  a 
funny  job  for  a  boy.  I  had  never  seen  a  great  man 
suddenly  go  weak  like  that.  His  temperature  had 
fallen  below  normal.  'Ah  .  .  .'  he  said.  'I  thought 
so.  .  .  .  Brandy.  .  .  .' 


THE  THRESHOLD  205 

"But  he  couldn't  take  it  himself.  Tou've  got 
to  be  the  doctor  now,  John/  he  said.  There  wasn't 
any  more  fight  left  in  him.  All  that  day  he  hardly 
spoke  at  all,  but  at  night  he  called  me  to  his  side 
and  told  me  to  make  a  bonfire  of  all  the  books 
and  the  bills  we'd  been  making  out  the  week  before. 
(I  shan't  want  any  more  money/  he  said.  'But  you 
will  ...  a  little.  .  .  .  I've  seen  to  that.  You're  a 
good  lad.  Don't  aim  too  high.  And  don't  think 
too  much  about  money.  Money  is  the  root  of  all 
evil.  .  .  .' 

"I  scarcely  took  any  notice  of  what  he  said.  I 
only  knew  that  I  was  going  to  lose  the  only  friend 
I  had.  He  died  early  next  morning,  and  I  was  just 
like  a  dog:  I  couldn't  bring  myself  to  leave  him. 

"I  stayed  in  the  house  .  .  .  you  see,  it  seemed 
as  if  I  couldn't  go  anywhere  else,  until  after  the 
funeral.  Then  the  lawyers  told  me  that  he  had  left 
me  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  in  his  will.  It  seemed 
to  me  a  tremendous  lot  of  money.  I  didn't  realise 
what  a  little  way  it  would  go;  but  it  seemed  to 
make  my  dreams  possible.  I  would  be  a  doctor, 
like  him  ...  as  near  like  him  as  it  was  possible 
to  be.  That  was  my  first  idea;  but  then  I  remem- 
bered what  he  had  told  me,  and  decided  that  it 
would  be  better  to  become  a  chemist  first.  In  that 
way  I  could  make  sure  of  my  living. 

"I  left  Axcombe.  It  was  necessary  that  I  should 
go  to  some  big  city  to  study  and  more  or  less  by 
accident  I  chose  North  Bromwich.  It  was  a  tre- 
mendous change  for  me  who  had  lived  all  my  life 
in  the  country :  I  was  very  lonely  and  awkward  at 
first.  But  that  wasn't  the  worse  of  it.  I  began  to 


206         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

discover  my  own  ignorance :  to  see  that,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  knew  nothing  but  the  homely  routine  of 
the  doctor's  surgery,  the  names  of  a  few  drugs  and 
their  doses,  a  smattering  of  Latin,  and  the  botany 
of  the  local  wild  flowers.  I  knew  nothing  of  life. 
I  couldn't  even  pull  out  a  tooth  without  breaking  it. 

"It  came  as  an  awful  shock  to  me.  I  began  to 
see  the  reasons  of  the  doctor's  cautious  advice.  He 
realised  that  I  Tiad  a  great  deal  of  the  dreamer  in 
me.  I  rather  think  that  you  have  it  too,  Eddie. 
No  doubt  it  comes  to  both  of  us  from  those  strange, 
dark,  mining-people.  I  saw  that  I  should  have  to 
pull  myself  together  and  drive  myself  hard  if  my 
ambitions  were  not- to  end  in  disaster.  I  had  to 
pinch  and  scrape.  I  had  to  set  out  and  learn  the 
most  elementary  things  from  the  beginning.  I  had 
thought  that  my  fortune  was  made.  Perhaps  it 
was  a  wise  thing  that  the  doctor  had  left  me  no 
more  money.  It  taught  me  that  nobody  could  make 
my  fortune  but  myself. 

"It  was  a  hard  fight,  I  can  tell  you:  for  while 
I  was  building  my  schemes  for  the  future  I  had  to 
provide  for  the  present.  You  see  I  had  soon 
realised  that  it  wouldn't  do  to  spend  any  of  my 
little  capital.  I  won't  tell  you  now  how  I  lived. 
It  would  be  too  long  a  story.  But  I  can  assure  you 
that  I  had  a  hard  time  in  North  Bromwich,  getting 
all  my  dreams  knocked  out  of  me  one  by  one,  thirst- 
ing— literally  thirsting  for  clean  air  and  country 
ways. 

"It  sounds  rather  like  a  tract,  but  it's  quite  true 
to  say  that  town  life  has  a  lot  of  temptations  too 
for  a  country  boy.  I  could  see  everywhere  the 


THE  THRESHOLD  207 

• 

power  of  money  and  the  luxuries  that  money  could 
purchase  without  realising  the  work  that  money 
represents,  and  all  this  was  very  disconcerting  to  a 
boy  of  my  temperament  with  more  than  a  hundred 
pounds  in  the  bank.  Still,  as  it  happened,  nothing 
went  wrong.  In  the  day-time  I  worked  with  my 
hands.  At  night  I  tried  to  educate  myself,  very 
slowly,  very  hardly — for  in  those  days  poor  people 
had  not  the  opportunities  of  education  that  are 
open  to  them  in  these.  I  sometimes  wonder  if  peo- 
ple to-day  realise  the  difference. 

"I  worked  on  quietly  for  years,  never  wasting  a 
penny  or  an  hour.  Don't  take  it  for  virtue  in  me. 
It  wasn't  that.  It  was  just  that  the  old  doctor's 
influence  on  me  had  been  sound  and  I  couldn't  af- 
ford to  do  otherwise.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  suppose 
there  must  have  been  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands, 
of  young  men  in  that  city  in  exactly  the  same  situa- 
tion. Only  I  didn't  know  one  of  them.  I  was  lonely 
.  .  .  absolutely  solitary.  I  never  heard  an  accent 
of  my  own  country's  speech.  I  never  saw  a  patch 
of  real  green  or  a  sky  that  hadn't  smoke  in  it.  I 
made  my  friends  in  books:  not  the  kind  of  books 
that  you've  been  brought  up  on — I  hadn't  time  for 
poetry  or  frills  of  that  kind:  books  of  solid  facts: 
knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowledge.  You  see  all 
the  things  that  you  would  take  for  granted,  hav- 
ing known  them  as  a  birthright,  so  to  speak,  were 
new  and  unknown  to  me."  One  book  was  a  sort  of 
gospel  to  me.  It  was  called  Self  Help,  written  by 
a  man  named  Smiles. 

"So  when  you  hear  of  a  self-made  man  it  may 
not  mean  much;  but  a  self-educated  man,  I  can 


208         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

tell  you,  means  a  good  deal.  In  the  end,  of  course, 
I  gradually  came  within  sight  of  my  ambition. 
From  a  van-driver  to  a  firm  of  wholesale  chemists 
I  became  an  assistant,  an  apprentice  in  their  retail 
house.  I  took  my  examinations.  I  qualified  as  a 
dispensing  chemist.  Later,  by  a  curious  piece  of 
chance,  I  met  your  mother.  We  became  friends. 
She  was  the  first  person  in  whom  I  had  confided 
since  I  left  Mendip.  She  seemed  to  understand. 
It  was  a  strange  thing  for  me,  after  all  those  years, 
to  be  able  to  talk  about  myself.  I  can't  tell  you 
what  a  wonderful  relief  it  was.  And  then  we  found 
that  we  loved  one  another  and  married.  We  went 
out  into  the  country  near  North  Bromwich  to  find 
a  village  to  make  a  home  in,  and  we  came  across 
Halesby.  The  place  was  very  different  from  what 
it  is  now  twenty  years  ago.  We  were  very  happy. 
No.  ...  I  won't  talk  about  it.  But  you  can  see 
now,  that  behind  your  life  there  were  quite  a  lot 
of  complicated  things  that  don't  appear  on  the  sur- 
face. It's  really  better  that  you  should  know 
them." 

"It  makes  me  love  you,  father,"  said  Edwin.  "Be- 
cause, of  course,  it  is  all  so  wonderful.  I  expect 
if  I  had  been  you  I  should  still  have  been  in  Ax- 
combe.  I  don't  think  I  could  have  done  what  you 
did." 

"You  might  have  done  a  great  deal  more.  There's 
no  knowing  what's  in  us  until  we  are  tried.  That 
sounds  like  Samuel  Smiles ;  but  it's  quite  true.  At 
any  rate  it's  time  we  were  asleep,  boy.  I  think  the 
rain  has  stopped." 

They   said   good-night,   and   Edwin   kissed  his 


THE  THRESHOLD  209 

father;  but  for  several  hours  later  he  heard  the 
clocks  of  Bristol  chiming.  In  a  little  time  he  knew 
by  the  quiet  breathing  of  his  father  that  he  was 
asleep,  and  hearing  this  sound  and  thinking  of  the 
grey  man  who  lay  beside  him,  he  was  overwhelmed 
with  an  emotion  in  which  pity  and  passionate  de- 
votion were  curiously  mingled.  He  felt  strangely 
protective,  as  though  it  were  the  man  who  had 
fought  such  a  hard  battle  who  was  weak,  and  he, 
who  had  never  endured  anything,  were  the  stronger. 

He  conceived  it  a  kind  of  sacred  duty  to  see  that 
for  all  the  rest  of  his  life  his  father  should  never 
suffer  any  pain  or  even  discomfort  from"  which  he 
could  protect  him.  It  was  a  more  vivid  version  of 
the  feeling  that  had  bowled  him  over  once  before, 
when  they  had  knelt  together  after  his  mother's 
death.  It  was  a  wholly  illogical  sentiment — and 
yet,  when  he  came  to  think  it  over,  he  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  something  of  the  same  kind  must 
have  underlain  his  mother's  tenderness  towards  his 
father.  He  was  eager  to  persuade  himself  that 
there  was  no  compassion  in  it:  only  love  and  ad- 
miration. 

"He  is  the  most  wonderful  man  in  the  world,"  he 
thought,  "and  I  never  knew  it."  Remorse  over- 
came him  when  he  remembered  that  once,  at  St. 
Luke's,  he  had  been  ashamed  of  Mr.  Ingleby's  call- 
ing. There  couldn't  be  another  chap  in  the  school 
who  had  a  father  that  was  a  patch  on  him.  He 
remembered  a  more  recent  cause  for  shame:  the 
shiver  of  discomfort  that  the  landlady's  revelation 
of  his  Uncle  Will's  occupation  had  given  him.  He 
had  thought  that  a  gardener  uncle  would  be  an  un- 


210         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

comfortable  skeleton  in  the  cupboard  of  a  Fellow 
of  Balliol.  Instead  of  that  he  now  knew  that  he 
should  have  been  proud  of  it :  he  should  have  been 
proud  of  anything  in  the  world  that  did  honour 
to  his  father.  Everything  that  he  was,  every  shred 
of  culture  that  he  possessed  had  its  origin  in  the 
devotion  and  the  sufferings  of  this  wonderful  man, 
and,  whatever  happened,  he  determined  that  he 
would  be  worthy  of  them. 

The  cathedral  clock  slowly  chimed  two.  Edwin 
turned  over  and  fell  asleep  in  a  mood  of  strange, 
exalted  happiness. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   HILLS 


UNDER  a  sky  of  rain-washed  blue  they  had  left 
Bristol,  and  after  an  hour  of  hard  riding  came 
to  an  easy  upland  plateau  where  the  road  lay  white 
and  clear  before  them,  so  clean  between  its  wide 
margins  of  rough  turf,  that  it  seemed  to  have  some 
affinity  with  the  sky.  On  their  way  they  had  met 
few  people,  but  the  carters  with  whom  they  had 
exchanged  a  morning  greeting  were  all  smiling  and 
friendly,  very  different  from  the  surly  colliers  that 
slouched  about  the  cinder-paths  at  Halesby. 

"Good-maarnin',"  they  said,  and  the  very  dialect 
was  friendly. 

"We're  over  the  worst  of  the  road,"  said  Mr. 
Ingleby.  "In  a  minute  or  two  we  shall  see  the 
hills." 

And,  from  a  final  crest,  the  road  suddenly  fell 
steeply  through  the  scattered  buildings  of  a  hamlet. 
An  inn,  with  a  wide  space  for  carts  to  turn  in,  stood 
on  a  sort  of  platform  at  the  right-hand  side  of  the 
highway,  and  in  front  of  the  travellers  lay  the  mass 
of  Mendip:  the  black  bow  of  Axdown  with  its 
shaggy  flanks,  the  level  cliffs  of  Callow,  and  a  bold 
seaward  spur,  so  lost  in  watery  vapours  that  it 
might  well  have  claimed  its  ancient  continuity 
with  the  islands  that  swam  beyond  in  the  grey  sea. 

211 


212         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

In  the  light  of  his  new  enthusiasm  Edwin  found  it 
more  impressive  than  any  scene  that  he  remem- 
bered: more  inspiring,  though  less  vast  in  its  per- 
spective, than  the  dreamy  plain  of  the  Severn's 
upper  waters  that  he  had  seen  so  many  times  from 
Uffdown.  For  these  hills  were  very  mountains,  and 
mightier  in  that  they  rose  sheer  from  a  plain  that 
had  been  bathed  in  water  within  the  memory  of 
man.  And,  more  than  all  this  .  .  .  far  more  .  .  . 
they  were  the  home  of  his  fathers. 

"Now  that  we  are  in  Somerset  we  should  drink 
the  wine  of  the  country." 

They  pushed  their  bicycles  on  to  the  platform 
before  the  inn  door,  and  Mr.  Ingleby  called  for 
cider,  a  pale,  dry  liquid  with  a  faint  acridity  very 
different  from  the  sugary  stuff  that  comes  to  the 
cities  in  bottles  from  Devonshire. 

"Yes,  it's  good  cider,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby,  tasting. 
"Where  does  it  come  from?"  he  asked  the  landlord, 
who  brought  it. 

"It  do  be  a  tidy  drop  o'  zidur,"  said  the  man. 
"It  do  come  from  Mr.  Atwell's  varm  into  Burrow- 
down." 

"In"  with  the  accusative,  thought  Edwin. 

"Is  old  Aaron  Atwell  still  living?"  asked  his 
father. 

The  landlord  laughed.  The  gentleman  must  have 
been  away  a  long  time  from  these  parts.  Mr.  At- 
well had  been  dead  these  fifteen  years. 

"The  cider's  the  same,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 

"  'Tis  a  marvellous  archard,  sure  'nuff,"  said  the 
landlord.  "And  last  year  was  a  wunnerful  year 
for  apples.  'Tis  all  accardin'  .  .  ." 


THE  HILLS  213 

They  left  him,  and  coasted  gently  down  the  hill. 
Descending,  it  seemed  to  Edwin  that  the  dome  of 
Axdown  lost  some  of  its  mountainous  quality ;  and 
by  the  time  that  they  had  reached  the  level  of  the 
plain  in  which  Wringford  lay,  he  was  hardly  con- 
scious of  its  imminence  more  than  as  a  reminder 
that  this  soft,  green  country  was  not  wholly  de- 
voted to  quietude  and  sleep,  but  that  a  cool  and 
lively  air  must  always  be  rolling  from  the  hidden 
slopes.  They  came  to  a  green,  bordered  by  elms 
in  heavy  leaf,  on  which  a  solitary  donkey  and  a 
flock  of  geese  were  grazing.  Now  the  road  was 
dead  level  and  the  hedges  rich  with  fragile  dog- 
rose  petals  and  thickets  of  hemp-agrimony  that 
were  not  yet  in  flower.  Superficially,  the  road 
might  have  been  part  of  Warwickshire;  but  there 
was  nothing  of  the  Midlands  in  the  air  that  moved 
above  it. 

"Take  the  next  turn  to  the  right,"  shouted  Mr. 
Ingleby  to  Edwin,  riding  ahead. 

In  the  middle  of  a  village  drenched  with  the 
perfume  of  roses,  Edwin  turned  to  the  right  down 
a  narrow  lane.  By  this  time  his  father  had  reached 
his  level.  "Here  we  are,"  he  said.  They  dis- 
mounted. 

It  was  a  small  cottage  with  a  green-painted  porch 
and  carefully  tended  garden  in  front  of  it.  The 
place  was  built  of  the  stone  of  the  country  and 
washed  with  the  pinkish  lime  of  the  hills.  In  the 
garden  roses  and  bright  annuals  were  blooming, 
and  a  huge  acacia,  hung  with  ivory  blossom, 
shadowed  the  garden  gate.  On  the  gate  itself  Ed- 
win read  a  crudely  painted  name:  Geranium  Cot- 


214         JHE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

tage.  Mr.  Ingleby  smiled.  "Your  Uncle  Will  is 
very  fond  of  geraniums."  They  opened  the  gate  and 
pushed  in  their  bicycles.  Everything  in  the  gar- 
den was  so  meticulously  orderly  that  to  wheel  them 
over  the  mown  grass  seemed  sacrilegious.  The 
porch,  at  which  they  waited,  was  full  of  choice 
geraniums.  Their  hot  scent  filled  the  air.  Mr. 
Ingleby  knocked  gently  with  a  polished  brass 
knocker.  Slow  steps  were  heard  within  moving 
over  a  flagged  floor.  The  door  was  opened,  dis- 
closing a  stone  passage  that  smelt  of  coolness  and 
cleanliness.  It  was  like  the  smell  of  a  sweet  dairy. 
An  elderly  woman,  with  a  plump  and  placid  face 
and  grey  hair,  received  them.  All  her  figure  except 
her  black  sateen  bodice  was  covered  with  a  coarse 
but  snowy  apron. 

"Why,  John,"  she  said.  -"It  do  be  a  treat  to  see 
you." 

She  took  Mr.  Ingleby  in  her  arms  and  kissed  him. 
"Poor  fellow,  too,"  she  said.  The  embrace  implied 
more  than  any  of  the  condolences  that  Edwin  had 
heard  in  Halesby. 

"And  this  is  Edwin,"  she  said.  "Well,  what  a 
great  big  man,  to  be  sure !"  She  proceeded  to  em- 
brace Edwin,  and  he  became  conscious  of  the 
extraordinary  softness  and  coolness  of  her  face. 

"Come  in  and  make  yourselves  comfortable,"  said 
Aunt  Sarah  Jane.  "We're  used  to  bicycles  in  this 
house.  Our  Joe  has  one.  He  goes  to  work  on  it 
every  day,  and  sometimes  on  a  Sunday  rides  over 
to  Clevedern  on  it.  Come  in,  John."  Edwin  fol- 
lowed his  father  into  the  living-room.  It  was  clean, 
strikingly  clean,  and  curiously  homely.  On  the! 


THE  HILLS  215 

walls  hung  a  picture  of  Queen  Victoria,  looking  like 
a  pouter  pigeon  in  her  jubilee  robes,  and  another 
of  the  sardonic  Disraeli.  There  were  several  padded 
photograph  albums  with  gilt  clasps,  and  other 
photographs  decorated  the  mantelpiece  and  a  side 
table.  These  were  all  accommodated  in  fretwork 
frames. 

"Joe  do  keep  us  supplied  with  up-to-date  photo- 
graph frames,"  said  Aunt  Sarah  Jane,  following 
Edwin's  glances  with  a  touch  of  motherly  pride. 
"He's  like  his  father.  Clever  with  his  fingers." 

Edwin  found  that  the  photographs  were  familiar. 
His  father  was  there:  an  ardent,  younger  father, 
with  black  whiskers  and  a  determined  mouth.  A 
father  confident  in  the  virtue  of  self-help.  His 
mother,  too,  in  a  tight-fitting  costume  of  the 
eighties,  with  a  row  of  buttons  down  the  front  from 
the  throat  to  the  hem.  And,  wonder  of  wonders, 
there  was  Edwin  himself  in  a  sailor  suit.  The  dis- 
covery of  his  own  portrait  did  something  to  destroy 
the  illusion  of  unreality  that  occupied  the  place. 
Obviously  he  really  belonged  to  it.  For  years, 
without  his  knowing  it,  his  image  had  been  part 
of  this  unfamiliar  room.  Even  though  he  had  not 
known  of  their  existence  he  had  evidently  been  a 
familiar  accepted  person  to  these  people.  Even 
their  friends  must  have  known  him  by  sight.  It 
was  strange.  It  was  pathetic.  "I  can  see  a  touch 
of  our  Joe  in  him,  John,"  said  his  aunt,  who  had 
been  examining  him  closely.  "An'  there  do  be  a 
look  of  your  father  as  well." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 


216         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Joe's  a  great  boy,  too,"  said  Aunt  Sarah  Jane 
lovingly. 

It  was  clear  enough  who  was  the  idol  of  this 
household. 

"There  now,  your  dinner  will  be  spoiling.  Take 
the  boy  upstairs,  John." 

She  left  them,  and  Edwin  followed  his  father 
up  a  crooked  stair  to  a  low  room  above  the  garden. 
A  cool  wind  was  blowing  down  from  Axdown,  and 
the  filagree  shadow  of  the  lace  window-curtains 
danced  on  the  white  coverlet  of  the  bed.  The  room 
smelt  faintly  of  lavender.  It  seemed  to  Edwin  a 
wonderful  room,  "full  of  sweet" — he  couldn't  re- 
member the  line — "peace  and  health  and  quiet 
breathing."  There  was  nothing  quite  so  placid  as 
this  in  the  life  that  he  had  known. 

They  washed  their  dusty  faces  and  came  down- 
stairs again,  and  Edwin,  seated  by  the  sunny 
window  of  the  front  room,  relapsed  into  a  state  of 
perfect  drowsiness,  content  merely  to  exist  and 
drink  in  the  sweet  and  simple  atmosphere  of 
humble  content.  This,  he  supposed,  was  what  his 
father  by  his  struggles  and  sacrifices  had  lost.  Was 
it  worth  while?  The  complications  of  this  question 
were  far  too  great  for  Edwin  to  decide. 

The  men  folk  of  Geranium  Cottage  did  not  re* 
turn  to  dinner,  and  after  that  meal,  in  which  suet 
dumplings  played  an  important  part,  Edwin  re- 
tired to  a  trellised  structure  at  the  back  of  the 
garden,  bowery  with  honeysuckle,  that  Aunt  Sarah 
Jane  described  as  the  harbour.  Here,  drugged  with 
more  cider  and  fresh  air,  he  dozed  away  the  early 
afternoon.  He  was  asleep  when  his  father  came  to 


THE  HILLS  217 

call  him  for  tea.  After  all,  it  was  not  surprising 
that  he  was  sleepy,  for  they  had  talked  into  the 
small  hours  the  night  before.  Certainly  Aunt 
Sarah  Jane's  tea  was  worth  waking  up  for.  Quince 
marmalade  and  clotted  cream,  and  wheaten  scones 
that  she  had  baked  that  morning.  Edwin,  ready 
now  for  any  further  revelations,  would  not  now 
have  been  shocked  to  hear  that  in  her  young  days 
she  had  been  a  cook.  In  this  beatific  state  of  re- 
freshment he  was  anxious  to  explore. 

"When  are  we  going  to  Highberrow,  father?" 

"And  this  was  to  be  a  restful  holiday,"  Mr. 
Ingleby  laughed.  "Why,  now,  if  you  like." 

Edwin  would  have  run  to  the  linhay  behind  the 
house  for  the  bicycles,  but  his  father  called  him 
back.  The  hill  was  so  steep,  he  told  him,  that  it 
would  be  easier  for  them  to  walk. 

"Well,  John,  Will  '11  be  tarrable  disappointed  if 
you  aren't  here  when  he  comes  home  from  work," 
said  Aunt  Sarah  Jane.  "This  young  man  of  yours 
do  go  too  fast  for  me." 

"Oh,  we  won't  be  long,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 

And  so  they  set  off  together  for  Highberrow, 
making,  first  of  all,  a  straight  line  for  the  base  of 
the  hills  and  then  following  a  green  lane  that 
skirted  the  foot  of  them  but  was  so  overshadowed 
with  hazel  that  the  slopes  could  not  be  seen.  In 
a  mile  or  so  they  cut  into  the  main  road  again, 
by  an  iron  milestone  that  said  "Bridgwater  18: 
Bristol  14."  The  road  climbed  along  a  quarried 
terrace  in  the  hill-side,  and  to  the  left  of  it  lay  a 
deep  valley,  on  the  farther  slope  of  which  lay  half 
a  dozen  pink-washed  cottages  with  gardens  falling 


218         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

to  the  bed  of  an  attenuated  stream;  and  behind 
the  cottages  a  steep  hill-side  rose  abruptly  to  a 
bare  height  crowned  with  ancient  earthworks. 

"That,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby,  "is  Silbury  camp. 
There's  an  old  rhyme  about  it.  It  is  supposed  to 
be  full  of  buried  gold.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  often 
used  to  lie  up  there  in  the  sun,  gazing  out  over  the 
channel.  In  spring  all  the  meadows  between  the 
camp  and  Highberrow  Batch  are  full  of  daffodils. 
I  often  used  to  wish  there  were  daffodils  in 
Halesby.  .  .  ." 

In  a  little  while  they  came  to  the  church  of  High- 
berrow, placed  like  a  watch-tower  on  the  edge  of 
the  Batch,  surveying  the  immense  relics  of  pagan- 
ism on  the  opposite  side  of  the  valley.  It  was  a 
humble  and  not  very  beautiful  building ;  but  Edwin 
entered  the  churchyard  with  awe,  for  it  seemed  to 
him  that  so  much  of  the  past  that  had  made  him 
lay  buried  there.  And  the  inscriptions  on  the 
tombstones  reinforced  this  idea;  for  the  church- 
yard was  veritably  crowded  with  the  remains  of 
dead  Inglebys.  It  made  the  past,  a  piece  of  knowl- 
edge so  recent  to  him  that  it  still  held  an  atmos- 
phere of  unreality  and  phantasy,  so  ponderable, 
that  in  comparison  with  it  his  present  condition 
seemed  almost  unreal.  His  father  led  him  through 
the  long  grass,  starry  with  yellow  ragwort,  to  the 
corner  in  which  his  grandmother  was  buried. 

"This  is  the  place  that  I  told  you  about,"  he 
said. 

"The  place  where  my  grandfather  went  out  at 
night  and  blasted  the  rock?" 

"Yes." 


THE  HILLS  219 

It  was  incredible.  Until  that  moment  the  story 
had  been  only  a  legend.  Edwin  wondered  how  ever 
his  father  could  have  broken  away  from  the  tradi- 
tion of  centuries  and  left  the  hills.  The  roots  of 
their  family  had  pierced  so  deeply  into  the  soil,  yes, 
even  beneath  the  soil  and  into  the  veins  of  the  solid 
rock.  The  conditions  of  his  own  life  seemed  to  him 
the  tokens  of  an  unnatural  and  artificial  thing. 

They  left  the  churchyard  by  a  narrow  lane  that 
always  climbed.  They  passed  the  village  inn :  a 
long,  windswept  building,  so  bare  and  so  exposed 
to  weather  that  even  the  tenure  of  the  lichen  on 
the  tiles  seemed  precarious.  Over  the  lintel  a 
weathered  board  showed  them  the  name  of  Ingleby 
in  faded  letters.  Edwin  pointed  to  it. 

"Yes,"  said  his  father.  "I  suppose  he  is  some 
remote  cousin  of  yours.  Everybody  that  is  left  in 
this  village  must  be  related  to  us  in  some  degree; 
though  I  don't  suppose  any  of  them  would  remem- 
ber me.  You  see,  I  went  to  Axcombe  when  I  was 
a  good  deal  younger  than  you."  He  smiled.  "I  am 
like  a  ghost  returning  to  its  old  home.  Like  a 
ghost.  .  .  ." 

And  yet,  to  Edwin,  the  whole  place  seemed 
familiar.  He  was  not  in  the  least  surprised  when, 
opposite  a  windy  farm-house,  in  front  of  which  the 
dry  blades  of  a  dishevelled  dracaena  shivered  as 
though  protesting  against  its  wintry  exile,  his 
father  turned  off  to  the  left  along  a  road  that  had 
once  been  gay  with  cottage  gardens  and  trim  build- 
ings of  stone,  but  was  now  suggestive  of  nothing  but 
ruin  and  desolation.  By  one  of  these  pathetic  ruins 
his  father  paused. 


220-        THEX  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"This  was  your  grandfather's  house,  Eddie.  It 
was  here  that  I  was  born." 

Now  there  remained  only  the  ground-plan  of  a 
house,  and  the  only  sign  of  habitation  in  all  the 
ruin  was  to  be  seen  in  the  smoke-blackened  stones 
of  the  chimney.  The  garden,  indeed,  lay  beautiful 
in  decay,  for  there,  as  everywhere  in  this  deserted 
countryside,  the  golden  ragwort  had  taken  posses- 
sion ;  but  within  the  walls  of  the  house  only  nettles 
shivered. 

"You'll  always  find  nettles  in  deserted  human 
habitations.  I  don't  know  why,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 
"There  is  a  rather  unusual  botanical  curiosity  to 
be  found  among  the  workings  at  Cold  Harbour," 
he  went  on,  "the  Eoman  Nettle.  Urtica  .  .  . 
Urtica.  .  .  .  My  memory  isn't  what  it  used  to  be. 
It  has  a  bigger  leaf  than  the  ordinary  nettle  and  a 
much  more  poisonous  sting.  It's  only  found  in 
places  where  the  Eomans  have  been." 

Why,  in  the  face  of  this  harrowing  desolation, 
should  he  be  thinking  of  things  like  that?  A 
ghost  ...  with  as  little  passion  or  feeling  as  a 
ghost:  emotions  so  different  from  the  passionate 
resentment  that  now  filled  Edwin's  heart. 

"Ah  .  .  .  here  is  the  school.  I  suppose  they 
couldn't  pull  that  down.  I  remember  when  it  was 
newly  built.  It  was  there  that  I  learnt  my  alpha- 
bet. .  .  ." 

In  the  whole  of  the  lane  the  school  was  the  only 
whole  building. 

"If  you  come  to  the  edge  of  the  Batch  you  will 
see  the  valley  bottom  where  I  spent  my  childhood 
with  your  great-grandmother." 


THE  HILLS  221 

They  passed  on,  and  saw,  a  hundred  feet  beneath 
them,  the  valley  of  the  little  stream.  More  ruins, 
many  of  them;  but  one  or  two  cottages  still  in- 
habited. The  lower  cottages  lay  close  to  the  water, 
and  in  four  or  five  places  the  stream  was  spanned 
by  a  clapper  bridge.  In  one  of  the  gardens  ghostly 
children  were  playing,  and  in  another  ghostly 
washing  flapped  in  a  breeze  that  had  risen  with 
the  coolness  of  evening.  Mr.  Ingleby  pointed  out 
to  Edwin  his  great-grandmother's  home.  It  was 
the  cottage  in  the  garden  of  which  the  children  were 
playing. 

From  the  chimney  a  trail  of  smoke  dwindled  up 
against  the  grey  hill-side. 

"I  should  like  to  see  inside  it,"  said  Edwin. 

"Would  you?  No  ...  I  don't  think  it  would 
be  worth  going  down  into  the  hollow  to  see  it. 
You'd  only  be  disappointed.  I  don't  expect  there'd 
be  anything  much  to  see.  Besides,  we  haven't  time. 
I  want  to  take  you  to  a  little  farm — it  isn't  really 
big  enough  to  be  called  a  farm — at  the  top  of  the 
lane  under  Axdown.  They  call  it  the  Holloway. 
Why  I  can't  imagine,  for  it  is  the  highest  point  of 
the  whole  village.  Your  aunt  tells  me  that  your 
grandfather's  sister,  your  own  great-aunt  Lydia,  is 
still  living  there,  and  I  think  I  had  better  go  and 
see  her." 

He  turned  again,  and  Edwin  followed  him.  It 
seemed  strange  to  him  that  his  father  should  not 
be  anxious  to  look  inside  the  house  where  his  child- 
hood had  been  spent.  A  ghost  ...  a  ghost.  .  .  . 

They  passed  the  windy  farm  once  more.  A  man, 
in  muddy  gaiters,  was  driving  cows  into  the  yard. 


222         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

He  was  the  first  creature — apart  from  the  ghostly 
children  in  the  valley — that  they  had  seen.  A  tall 
man,  with  a  gaunt,  grey  face,  who  did  not  even 
turn  to  look  at  them  or  give  them  good-evening,  al- 
though they  must  surely  have  been  the  only  living 
people  that  he  had  seen  that  day.  It  was  impossible 
to  believe  from  the  sight  of  its  exterior  that  the 
farm  was  now  inhabited. 

"Who  do  you  think  he  is?"  Edwin  asked. 

"I  don't  know.  I  haven't  the  least  idea.  The 
people  at  that  farm  used  to  be  named  Ingleby ;  and 
he  certainly  has  the  figure  of  your  grand- 
father. .  .  ." 

"Won't  you  stop  and  speak  to  him?" 

"Why  should  we?" 

"But  he  would  be  awfully  pleased  to  see  you  and 
know  who  you  are.  .  .  ." 

"I  don't  expect  he  would." 

A  moment  later  Mr.  Ingleby  said, — 

"Now,  the  ruins  of  this  cottage  ought  to  interest 
you,  Edwin." 

"Why?    Is  it  one  of  ours?" 

"No,  but  the  old  woman  who  lived  in  it  in  my 
day  was  always  supposed  to  be  a  witch.  Mendip 
people  were  always  great  believers  in  witchcraft. 
I  shouldn't  wonder  if  your  aunt  believes  in  'ill- 
wishing'  to  this  day.  I  suppose  she  was  really  a 
harmless  old  body.  The  story  was  that  a  daughter 
of  hers,  with  whom  she  had  quarrelled,  married  a 
small  dairy  farmer  down  by  Axcombe,  and  no 
sooner  had  she  gone  to  live  with  him  than  the  poor 
man's  cows  went  dry.  His  business  failed.  He 
had  to  sell  his  stock.  He  was  ruined,  and  took  to 


THE  HILLS  223 

drink ;  and  in  all  the  public-houses  for  miles  round 
he  used  to  rail  against  his  mother-in-law,  and  say 
that  she  was  responsible  for  the  whole  business. 
She  was  a  lonely  old  creature,  very  poor  and  dirty, 
and  when  we  were  children  and  going  up  to  the 
Holloway  we  used  to  cover  our  eyes  and  run  for 
fear  we  should  catch  sight  of  her.  No  one  even 
knew  when  she  died.  They  found  her,  I  heard, 
when  she  had  been  dead  for  a  week  or  ten  days." 

Edwin  shivered.  These  hill-people,  it  seemed, 
were  hard  and  cruel.  No  doubt  he  must  have  some 
of  their  stony  cruelty  in  his  own  being  somewhere. 

At  last  they  reached  the  farm  at  the  top  of  the 
Holloway.  It  was  a  poor  building,  only  a  little 
more  hospitable  than  the  ruins  in  the  valley.  Mr. 
Ingleby  knocked  at  the  door,  and  a  sturdy,  middle- 
aged  man  with  an  iron  hook  in  place  of  his  right 
hand  lifted  the  latch  and  stared  at  them. 

"You  don't  know  me,  Isaac?"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 

"Noa.  ...  I  can't  say  I  do  know  'ee." 

'I'm  John  Ingleby." 

"John  Ingleby!  .  .  .  Well,  and  I'm  proud  to  see 
'ee,  John.  Do  'ee  step  inside  and  see  mother.  I 
can't  shake  hands  with  'ee  the  way  I  was  used  to. 
I  lost  en  in  a  mowin'-machine  five  years  back. 
Come  in  then." 

He  led  the  way  into  a  dark  cabin.  Everything 
in  it  was  dark,  partly,  perhaps,  because  the  win- 
dows were  full  of  flower-pots ;  partly  because  all  the 
furniture  was  darkened  with  age  or  smoke  or 
grime.  The  only  bright  colours  in  its  brownness 
were  a  number  of  shining  copper  utensils  and  a 


224         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

fine  show  of  geraniums  in  the  window.  Isaac  fol- 
lowed Mr.  Ingleby's  eyes  towards  these  flowers. 

"Purty,  ban't  they?"  he  said  with  pride.  "Your 
brother  Will  sent  mother  they." 

In  the  gloom  of  the  fireplace,  where  a  pile  of 
turves  smouldered,  mother  began  to  dissociate  her- 
self from  the  surrounding  brownness.  She  was  a 
very  old  woman.  Edwin  had  never  seen  any  one 
so  old — sitting  bolt  upright  in  a  straight-backed 
oaken  chair.  Her  face  seemed  to  Edwin  very 
beautiful,  for  extreme  age  had  taken  from  it  all 
the  extraneous  charm  that  smoothness  and  colour 
give,  leaving  only  the  sheer  chiselled  beauty  of 
feature.  It  was  a  noble  face,  finely  modelled,  with 
a  straight  nose,  a  tender  mouth,  and  level  brows 
beneath  which  burned  the  darkest  and  clearest  eyes 
that  Edwin  had  ever  seen.  Her  hair  was  white  and 
scanty,  but  little  of  it  was  seen  beneath  the  white 
bonnet  that  she  wore.  Edwin  felt  her  eyes  go 
through  him  in  the  gloom. 

"Here's  cousin  John  come  to  see  'ee,  mother," 
said  Isaac,  bending  over  her. 

"John?    What  John?"  said  the  old  lady. 

It  struck  Edwin  at  once  that  her  speech  was 
purer  and  more  delicate  than  that  of  her  son. 

"John  Ingleby,  Aunt  Lydia,"  said  Edwin's  father. 

"You  need  not  raise  your  voice,  my  dear,"  she 
said.  "My  sight  and  my  hearing  are  wonderful, 
thank  God." 

"Then  you  remember  me,  Aunt  Lydia?" 

"Of  course  I  remember  you,  John.  Though  it's 
many  and  many  years  since  my  eyes  saw  you.  And 
how  are  you,  my  dear?  They  tell  me  that  you  have 


THE  HILLS  225 

done  great  things  in  the  world.  You're  a  doctor, 
like  poor  Dr.  Marshall." 

"No  .  .  .  I'm  not  a  doctor.  I'm  in  business. 
I'm  a  chemist." 

"I  knew  it  was  something  of  the  kind.  You 
needn't  speak  so  loud.  And  they  told  me  you  had 
married.  I  suppose  this  is  your  boy.  A  fine  boy, 
surely.  He  has  a  look  of  your  grandfather." 

"Yes,  this  is  Edwin." 

"I  don't  remember  that  name  in  our  family.  It 
sounds  like  a  fanciful  name.  Come  here,  my  dear, 
and  let  me  look  at  you." 

Edwin  went  to  her,  and  she  kissed  him.  Her  face 
was  so  cold  and  smooth  that  she  might  almost  have 
been  dead. 

"And  how  is  your  dear  wife,  John?" 

"I've  had  a  terrible  blow,  Aunt  Lydia.  I've  lost 
her." 

"Ah  .  .  .  that  was  bad  for  you,  and  bad  for  the 
boy,  too." 

"I  shall  never  get  over  it."  Mr.  Ingleby's  voice 
trembled. 

"Yes,  of  course,  you  say  that.  It's  natural  that 
you  should.  You're  young.  But  when  you  live 
to  be  as  old  as  I  am  you'll  know  better.  You  will 
get  over  it.  When  a  few  years  have  gone  by  you'll 
marry  again." 

"Never,  Aunt  Lydia  .  .  .  never.  .  .  ." 

"Yes.  .  .  .  That's  what  you  feel  now.  But  I 
know  the  family.  The  Inglebys  are  always  very 
tender  in  marriage.  I've  seen  many  of  them  that 
have  lost  their  wives,  and  they  always  marry  again. 
I  don't  suppose  that  I  shall  live  to  hear  of  it;  but 


226         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

when  the  time  comes  you'll  remember  what  I  said." 

"No,  Aunt  Lydia  .  .  .  never." 

"Time  is  a  wonderful  thing,  John.  I'm  glad  to 
have  seen  you  and  your  boy.  I  hope  he'll  take 
after  you — you  were  always  the  best  of  them." 

She  gave  a  little  sigh.  Evidently  she  was  tired. 
The  flame  that  burned  behind  her  black  eyes  was 
so  very  feeble  for  all  its  brightness.  Isaac,  who 
had  been  watching  her  with  the  devotion  of  a 
practised  nurse,  saw  that  she  could  not  stand  any 
more  talking. 

"Now,  mother,  that's  enough,  my  dear,"  he  said. 

"Kiss  me,  John,"  she  said.  And  Mr.  Ingleby 
kissed  her. 

"Well,  now  that  you  be  here  after  all  these 
years,"  said  Isaac  cheerily,  as  he  rearranged  the 
red  shawl  round  his  mother's  shoulders,  "you  won't 
leave  us  without  taking  something.  There  do  be  a 
lovely  bit  of  bacon  I  have  cut.  Do  'ee  try  a  bit 
now,  and  a  mug  of  cider." 

Edwin,  who  was  already  hungry  with  his  walk, 
and  was  rapidly  acquiring  a  taste  for  the  wine  of 
the  country,  now  became  aware  of  the  fact  that  the 
dark  ceiling  was  decked  with  sides  of  bacon  and 
hams  that  hung  there  slowly  pickling  in  the  turf 
smoke  that  saturated  the  atmosphere  of  the  room. 
He  was  disappointed  when  his  father  declined  to. 
take  any  of  this  delicacy. 

.  "Well,  a  mug  of  cider,  then,"  Isaac  persisted. 
He  went  into  an  inner  chamber  down  three  stone 
steps,  with  three  china  mugs  hanging  on  his  hook. 
"You  see,  I  do  be  pretty  handy  with  en,"  he 
laughed. 


THE  HILLS  227 

They  drank  their  cider  solemnly.  It  was  even 
drier  than  that  which  they  had  drunk  for  lunch 
at  Wringford,  and  so  free  from  acidity  that  all  that 
Edwin  could  taste  was  that  faint  astringent  bit- 
terness. It  had  also  a  bouquet  that  was  less  like 
the  odour  of  apples  than  that  of  a  flour-mill.  A 
wonderful  drink.  .  .  .  They  said  good-bye,  and 
Isaac,  who  seemed  to  Edwin  the  most  kindly  and 
patient  creature  he  had  ever  met,  showed  them  to 
the  door. 

By  this  time  the  sun  was  setting,  and  the  cool 
wind  from  the  west  had  freshened.  Edwin  saw, 
for  the  first  time,  the  huge  panorama  on  which 
they  had  turned  their  backs  as  they  climbed  the 
hill  to  the  Holloway.  Perhaps  it  was  the  strange- 
ness of  all  his  recent  experience;  perhaps,  partly, 
the  exhilaration  that  proceeded  from  Isaac's  cider, 
but  the  sight  struck  Edwin  as  one  of  greater 
magnificence  than  any  he  had  ever  seen  before. 
From  their  feet  the  whole  country  sloped  in  a  series 
of  hilly  waves  to  the  shores  of  the  channel,  and 
that  muddy  sea  now  shone  from  coast  to  coast  in  a 
blaze  of  tawny  light:  now  truly,  for  the  first  time, 
one  of  the  gateways  of  the  world.  And  beyond  the 
channel  stood  the  heaped  mountains  of  Wales,  very 
wild  and  black  in  their  vastness.  The  sight  was  so 
impressive  that  on  their  way  down  the  lane  they 
did  not  speak. 

At  last  Edwin  said,— 

"I  think  Aunt  Lydia  has  a  very  beautiful  face. 
She  looks  like  some  old  grand  lady." 

"She  is  very  like  your  grandfather,"  said  his 


228         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 


father.    "She  must  be  over  ninety.    It  is  a  great 
age." 

And  on  the  way  home  Edwin  began  to  imagine 
what  his  strange  grandfather  the  dowser  must  have 
been,  with  the  figure  of  the  lonely  farmer,  his  black 
beard  and  hair,  and  his  great-aunt  Lydia's  noble 
features  and  piercing  eyes. 

n 

They  stayed  for  a  week  at  Geranium  Cottage, 
sinking  without  any  effort  into  its  placid  life. 
Edwin  was  content  merely  to  live  there,  soaking 
up  the  atmosphere  of  Wringford  village,  and  only 
thinking  of  Highberrow  as  a  strange  and  ghostly 
adventure,  possible,  but  too  disturbing  to  be  in- 
dulged in.  The  tiredness  of  Mr.  Ingleby,  who 
never  showed  the  least  inclination  to  revisit  the 
place,  made  this  abstention  easier.  In  the  whole 
of  his  week  at  Wringford  Edwin  only  made  one 
attempt  to  see  Highberrow  again.  The  impulse 
came  to  him  very  early  one  morning,  just  at  the 
hour  of  dawn  when  the  birds  had  fallen  to  silence, 
and  Joe,  who  happened  to  be  working  for  his  mas- 
ter at  a  village  some  miles  away,  was  splashing 
about  under  the  pump  in  the  yard  at  the  back  of 
the  linhay.  Mr.  Ingleby  was  still  asleep,  and  Ed- 
win, dressing  quietly,  stole  downstairs  and  set  off 
towards  the  hills,  this  time  on  his  bicycle. 

He  followed  the  high  road,  and  left  the  machine 
in  a  quarry  opposite  the  point  where  the  first  pink- 
washed  cottages  appeared.  By  this  time  he  was 
almost  sorry  that  he  had  come  there:  for  he  was 
quite  certain  that  the  village  he  was  now  going  to 


THE  HILLS  229 

visit  would  be  a  very  different  place  from  the  dead 
or  hallucinated  Highberrow  that  he  and  his  father 
had  penetrated  some  days  before.  He  felt  this  so 
strongly  that  he  wouldn't  take  the  risk  of  spoiling 
that  marvellous  impression,  and  instead  of  follow- 
ing the  road  that  they  had  taken  before,  he  changed 
his  mind,  crossed  the  valley  of  the  pink  cottages, 
and  climbed  the  shaley  slope  of  Silbury.  In  the 
fosse  that  surrounded  the  encampment  a  hundred 
white  tails  bobbed  at  once,  and,  laughing,  he 
scrambled  up  the  sides  of  what  had  once  been  Sil- 
bury Camp,  and  now  was  Silbury  Warren. 

Here,  lying  full  length  upon  the  top  of  the 
vallum,  as  perhaps  a  Belgic  ancestor,  or  an  ancestor 
who  held  the  crest  before  the  Belgae  came,  had  lain 
before  him,  he  could  look  over  the  combe' towards 
the  church  of  Highberrow  on  the  Batch.  And  the 
church  tower  was  all  he  saw  of  Highberrow  again : 
a  feature  most  unrepresentative  of  the  spirit  of  that 
pagan  place.  Even  the  church  tower  at  this  hour 
of  the  morning  could  scarcely  be  seen  for  mist,  and 
all  the  time  cold  mist  was  pouring  down  in  a  dense, 
impalpable  stream  from  the  milky  coverlet  that 
spread  upon  Axdown  and  Callow  and  all  the  hills 
beyond.  In  the  plain  nothing  could  be  seen  at 
first ;  and  from  the  sleeping  villages  no  mist-muffled 
sound  was  heard ;  but  by  degrees  the  pattern  of  the 
plain's  surface,  with  its  dappled  orchards,  its  green 
pasturage  and  paler  turf -moors,  cut  by  the  straight 
bands  of  the  rhines,  the  sluggish  channels  through 
which  the  surface  water  drained  into  the  sea,  be- 
came more  clear,  and  with  this  the  sounds  of  the 
country  grew  more  distinct :  indefinite  noises,  such 


230         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

as  the  creaking  of  cart-wheels  in  a  hidden  lane,  the 
squeak  of  a  pump-handle  at  Ihe  back  of  the  pink 
cottages,  the  clink  of  a  pick  in  the  quarry.  The 
whole  world  awoke,  and  Edwin,  too,  found  that  he 
was  awake  and  awfully  hungry.  He  scrambled 
down  the  slope.  Smoke  was  now  rising  from  the 
chimneys  of  the  cottages  in  the  combe.  He  was 
back  at  Wringford  in  time  for  breakfast. 

By  this  time  he  had  begun  to  feel  quite  at  home 
in  Geranium  Cottage.  He  had  made  the  discovery 
of  his  cousin  and  his  Uncle  Will.  The  latter  he 
found  wholly  lovable:  a  creature  of  slow,  quiet 
speech,  as  leisurely  and  peaceful  as  his  vocation, 
and  full  of  small  kindnesses  that  surprised  by  rea- 
son of  their  unexpectedness. 

The  thing  that  most  impressed  Edwin  in  his 
uncle's  nature  was  the  extraordinary  tenderness  he 
showed  towards  the  green  things  that  were  his  care. 
Perhaps  the  west-country  custom  of  dispensing 
with  the  neuter  pronoun  and  speaking  of  all  in- 
animate creatures  as  if  they  were  persons,  made 
his  solicitude  for  their  welfare  more  noticeable. 
But  he  was  not  only  kind  to  them  in  his  speech :  his 
short  and  clumsy-looking  fingers,  that  seemed  to  be 
built  for  nothing  but  the  roughest  of  labour,  became 
amazingly  sensitive  and  delicate  as  soon  as  he  be- 
gan to  handle  the  plants  in  his  garden,  so  that 
every  touch  had  in  it  the  nature  of  a  caress. 

In  this  life,  of  the  devoted  husbandman,  he  was 
evidently  wholly  contented;  and  he  made  it  seem 
to  Edwin  the  most  natural  and  human  on  earth. 
The  fascination  of  watching  his  uncle's  hands  grew 
upon  him,  and  in  the  end  he  would  watch  the  man, 


JHE  HILLS  231 

who  had  been  busy  at  the  same  work  in  his  master's 
garden  all  day,  tending  his  own  favourites  at  home 
until  the  light  began  to  fail,  and  Aunt  Sarah  Jane 
would  call  the  two  of  them  in  to  supper.  The  spec- 
tacle had  a  sort  of  hypnotic  effect  upon  the  boy,  it 
was  so  slow  and  measured,  as  slow  almost,  Edwin 
thought,  as  the  processes  of  germination  and  growth 
which  it  was  his  uncle's  vocation  to  assist.  His 
fingers  even  handled  the  purple  soil  as  if  he  loved 
it. 

His  cousin  was  a  different  matter  altogether :  a 
tall,  dark-haired  boy,  a  couple  of  years  older  than 
Edwin.  He  had,  much  more  distinctly  than  Uncle 
Will,  the  Ingleby  face,  the  features  that  were  to 
be  seen  at  their  best  in  the  old  lady  at  the  Holloway 
farm.  And  he  possessed  in  a  high  degree  the  qual- 
ity that  had  carried  Edwin's  father  out  into  the 
world:  a  seriousness  that  made  him  anxious  to 
"get  on,"  promptings  of  which  were  now  being  sat- 
isfied in  an  accumulation  of  the  periodical  publica- 
tions that  have  taken  the  place  of  Mr.  Samuel 
Smiles  in  these  days :  weeklies  devoted  to  all  kinds 
of  useful  hobbies — electricity,  wood-carving,  plumb- 
ing— the  series  that  eventually  culminated  in  the 
gigantic  illusion  of  the  Self-Educator. 

To  these  short  cuts  to  power  the  young  man 
devoted  all  his  evenings,  and  though  he  was  quite 
natural  in  his  anxiousness  to  be  friendly  with 
Edwin,  with  whose  subtler  and  more  contemplative 
nature  he  had  at  present  so  little  in  -common,  the 
attempts  were  not  very  successful.  Between  these 
two  there  lay  a  far  more  obvious  gulf  than  that 
which  separated  Edwin  from  the  older  people.  In 


232         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

a  way,  he  could  not  help  admiring  his  cousin's 
earnestness,  probably  because  he  knew  that  he 
could  never  imitate  it,  and  yet  he  sometimes  found 
himself  examining  it  in  a  mood  of  absolute  detach- 
ment that  made  his  sympathy  feel  artificial. 

Just  before  he  left  St.  Luke's  he  had  been  reading 
Darwin's  Origin  of  Species,  and  in  the  light  of  this 
work  the  efforts  of  his  father,  followed  by  those 
of  his  cousin  Joe,  seemed  to  him  an  excellent  in- 
stance of  the  tendency  of  ancient  stocks  to  vary 
or  sport  in  definite  directions.  In  the  earnest  Joe 
Edwin  found  the  phenomenon  a  little  troublesome, 
for  the  sight  of  the  immense  energies  that  the  youth 
was  putting  into  channels  that  were  futile  dis- 
tressed him,  and  the  more  so  because  to  correct  the 
Waste  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  begin  again 
from  a  point  so  distant  that  Joe  would  be  faced 
with  the  spectacle  of  more  than  half  of  his  present 
energies  wasted.  So  Edwin  thought  as  little  as  the 
consciousness  of  his  own  selfishness  would  allow 
him,  of  all  the  labours  that  were  typified  by  the 
fretwork  mahogany  frames  that  surrounded  the 
photographs  of  the  Halesby  Inglebys,  listening  in- 
stead to  the  endless  tales  of  his  Aunt  Sarah  Jane, 
in  the  hour  when  she  became  talkative,  after  supper. 

By  this  time  Edwin  was  so  interested  in  his  own 
romantic  origins  that  any  story  of  the  old  High- 
berrow  would  do  for  him;  and  his  aunt,  with  her 
soft  Somerset  voice,  her  picturesque  phrasing,  and 
her  unfailing  memory  for  social  details,  rebuilt, 
night  after  night,  the  life  of  the  decayed  village  as 
it  had  been  in  the  old  dowser's  time,  evolving  by 
degrees  a  human  comedy  which  resembled  that  of 


THE  HILLS  233 

its  great  exemplar  by  the  way  in  which  the  protag- 
onists of  one  episode  became  mere  incidentals  to 
another.  Edwin  knew  them  all  by  name,  and  recog- 
nised them  as  if  he  had  met  them  in  the  flesh  when- 
ever lie  heard  of  them. 

In  this  way,  sitting  in  the  smell  of  the  window 
geraniums  over  a  leisurely  supper  of  bread  and 
cheese,  in  his  uncle's  case  literally  washed  down 
with  cider,  he  heard  a  story  that  he  always  remem- 
bered with  pride  and  pity  and  a  degree  of  passionate 
resentment:  the  story  of  how  the  village  of  his 
fathers  had  sunk  into  decay. 

Highberrow,  it  appeared,  had  been  built  on  what 
was  then  a  common  moorland,  by  the  men  who 
lived  in  it,  laboriously,  stone  by  stone.  Their  right 
to  these  fruits  of  their  labour  had  never  been  called 
into  question,  and  the  whole  spirit  of  the  village 
had  been  happy  and  prosperous,  as  well  it  might, 
seeing  that  it  owed  nothing  to  the  care  of  any  out- 
sider and  could  pay  its  way.  And  during  those 
prosperous  times  its  liberties  seemed  secure  from 
danger.  But  when  the  decay  of  the  grouvier's  in- 
dustry led  to  unemployment  and  poverty,  and  the 
younger  men  of  the  Highberrow  families  began  to 
look  for  their  living  overseas,  the  little  community 
became  so  weak  that  the  owner  of  the  manor-house 
saw  his  opportunity.  As  Lord  of  the  Manor  he 
disputed  the  "squatters'  right"  of  the  Highberrow 
villagers,  and  through  his  agents  demanded  a  rent 
that  would  have  made  living,  impossible  for  most 
of  them,  for  the  cottages  that  they  or  their  fore- 
fathers had  built.  If  they  refused  to  pay  the  rent, 
he  said,  they  would  be  evicted,  not  in  order  that 


234         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

other  people  might  be  introduced  who  would  pay, 
but  merely  to  satisfy  the  landlord's  convictions  of 
the  Tightness  of  his  principle.  That  was  the  way 
in  which  he  put  it.  Merely  out  of  spite  would  be 
a  more  accurate  description  of  his  motives. 

Highberrow  was  in  a  bad  way.  The  villagers 
were  either  very  old  or  very  young,  and  in  either 
case  their  feebleness  made  the  whole  organism  unfit 
to  resist  the  inroads  of  the  parasite.  What  is  more, 
they  were  very  poor,  and  the  very  nature  of  the 
Mendip  mining  industry  had  made  them  so  far  indi- 
vidualist that  the  idea  of  combined  resistance  did 
not  occur  to  them.  The  landlord  wisely  started  his 
operations  with  an  old  woman  whose  cottage  lay 
nearest  to  the  woods  in  which  his  pheasants  were 
bred.  Almost  incredibly  poor,  she  had  lived  on  the 
products  of  her  garden  and  her  poultry.  To  pay 
rent  was  out  of  the  question.  Sheer  'age  and  inertia 
made  it  impossible  for  her  to  move,  and  in  the 
course  of  time  she  was  evicted  with  her  miserable 
belongings,  and  went  to  die  at  the  home  of  a  mar- 
ried daughter. 

Emerging  from  this  easy  contest,  the  landlord, 
or  perhaps  his  agent,  moved  on  to  the  next.  It 
was  unfortunate  for  him,  and  fortunate  for  the 
villagers,  that  he  now  pitched  on  the  cottage  of 
Thomas  Ingleby,  the  dowser,  Edwin's  grandfather. 
The  old  man  had  this  in  his  favour:  that  he  was 
a  man  of  two  trades,  that  even  when  the  mining 
had  failed  him  he  could  make  a  living  with  the 
divining  rod,  and  the  consciousness  of  this  power 
no  doubt  stiffened  his  resistance.  Another  eviction 
was  decreed,  but  this  time  things  did  not  go  so 


THE  HILLS  235 

easily.  When  the  landlord's  men  arrived  from  the 
manor  to  empty  the  house,  another  party  appeared 
from  the  Cold  Harbour  mines,  and  as  soon  as  the 
furniture  was  dragged  out  at  the  front  door  it  was 
seized  and  taken  in  again  at  the  back. 

"It  were  a  proper  field-day,"  said  Uncle  Will 
quietly,  "I  do  remember  it  well.  I  can  see  your 
father  now,  John,  standing  over  beyond  the  road 
with  his  back  to  the  wall,  not  speakin'  a  word,  just 
smokin'  of  his  pipe." 

The  landlord's  men  saw  that  this  sort  of  thing 
might  go  on  for  ever  and  none  the  better  for  it,  so 
they  just  gave  it  up,  but  old  Ingleby  (Edwin  had 
already  canonised  him  as  a  "village  Hampden") 
had  shown  the  rest  of  the  Highberrow  people  what 
could  be  done,  and  gradually  stirred  them  into  com- 
bined action. 

It  was  a  little,  pitiful  attempt.  He  himself  put 
into  it  all  his  savings,  a  matter  of  a  few  pounds, 
and  to  this  were  added  as  many  shillings  as  could 
be  scraped  together  in  the  village.  He  took  the 
money  to  a  lawyer  in  Axcombe — Bayliss  was  his 
name — an  honest  man  with  a  sense  of  justice  and, 
one  suspects,  some  admiration  for  the  sturdiness 
of  his  client.  Bayliss  worked  the  matter  up  and 
made  a  case  of  it,  and  no  further  attempts  at  evic- 
tion were  made  in  Highberrow  in  the  meantime. 
The  village  even  regained  a  little  of  its  former 
confidence,  and  for  some  time  the  landlord  did  not 
show  his  face  in  it.  But  once  more  luck  was  against 
Highberrow.  Bayliss,  the  good  lawyer,  died.  He 
had  been  careful  to  keep  the  matter  in  his  own 
hands,  and  when  it  came  to  be  considered  by  his 


236         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

successor,  a  partner  with  social  ambitions,  the  new 
man  would  not  touch  it:  partly  because  there  ap- 
peared to  be  no  more  money  in  it  (as  was  probably 
the  case),  and  partly  because  he  was  in 'the  habit 
of  meeting  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  in  the  hunting- 
field,  and  was  on  card-playing  terms  with  the  agent. 

There  followed  an  exodus  of  despair.  The  people 
'of  Highberrow,  who  had  no  more  money  to  fight 
with,  packed  up  their  pitiable  belongings  and  left 
their  houses  rather  than  face  the  trouble  of  eviction. 
Not  so  Thomas  Ingleby.  The  agent  returned  to  the 
attack.  There  were  threats:  a  stormy  interview, 
in  which  the  dowser  faced  the  landlord  himself.  A 
final  week's  notice  was  given,  and  Ingleby  made 
sure  once  more  of  the  support  of  his  friends  from 
the  neighbouring  villages.  But  no  further  attempt 
at  eviction  was  made.  At  the  last  moment  the  land- 
lord climbed  down.  He  arranged  another  inter- 
view, and  at  this  the  terms  for  the  whole  village 
were  settled.  For  the  lives  of  the  present  occu- 
pants, or  for  a  period  of  sixty  years,  the  cottages 
should  remain  rent-free.  It  was  not  everything, 
but  'twas  a  famous  victory.  "That  is  why  Aunt 
Lydia  do  be  still  living  up  to  the  Holloway  to  this 
day,"  said  Aunt  Sarah  Jane. 

"And  I  suppose  grandfather  lived  there  till  he 
died,"  said  Edwin. 

"No,  the  poor  dear.  When  he  did  grow  very  aged 
your  uncle  and  I  went  up  to  Highberrow  and  per- 
suaded en  that  he  weren't  fit  to  look  after  himself. 
You  should  'a  seed  the  dirt  in  that  house!  And 
he  corned  down  to  live  along  of  we.  But  he  were 
never  happy,  were  he,  Will?" 


THE  HILLS  237 

"Noa  ...  he  were  never  happy." 

"He  were  a  quare  old  man.  Us  seed  very  little 
of  en.  Arften  people  would  come  for  en  from  a 
distance  that  wanted  water  found,  and  he  did  spend 
the  day  roving  the  country  cutting  blackthorns  for 
his  dowsing.  Right  up  to  the  day  when  he  took 
to  his  bed,  poor  soul." 

"I  should  like  to  have  seen  him  dowsing,"  said 
Edwin.  "I  haven't  even  seen  the  twigs  that  they 
use." 

"Why,  that  would  have  been  easy  enough.  Only 
the  other  day  I  throwed  out  a  lot  that  belonged  to 
your  grandfather." 

Edwin  blushed  at  this  sacrilege.  "And  could 
Uncle  Will  find  water  with  a  twig?"  he  asked. 

"Not  I,"  laughed  his  uncle.  "But  they  do  say  it 
runs  in  families.  Have  you  ever  tried,  John?" 

"I  tried  when  I  was  a  boy,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby, 
"but  nothing  happened." 

"I  expect  our  Joe  could,"  said  Aunt  Sarah  Jane, 
with  infinite  faith  in  her  offspring. 

"No,  mother,  I've  tried  it,"  said  Joe,  from  the 
lamplit  corner  where  he  was  wrestling  with  the 
science  of  sanitary  inspection. 

"I  wonder  if  I  could  .  .  ."  said  Edwin. 

"Well,  you  shall  have  a  try,"  laughed  his  uncle. 

"At  this  time  o'  night?"  said  Aunt  Sarah  Jane, 
scandalised. 

"Let  the  boy  have  a  try,"  said  Uncle  Will,  rising. 
"  'Tis  a  beautivul  moonlight  night,  and  I'll  take 
him  over  the  field  where  the  new  water-pipe  runs." 

"You'm  mad,  the  two  of  you,"  said  his  aunt  with 
a  sigh. 


238         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Edwin  and  his  uncle  went  out  into  the  garden, 
and  there  the  boy  watched  the  gardener's  clumsy, 
skilful  hands  cut  a  forked  twig  from  a  blackthorn 
bush. 

"Hazel  do  work  as  well,"  he  said,  "but  father 
always  used  the  thorn." 

Then  they  went  out  together  over  a  dewy  meadow, 
and  his  uncle  showed  him  how  to  hold  the  rod: 
with  his  two  hands  turned  palm  upwards,  the  arms 
of  the  twig  between  the  third  and  fourth  fingers, 
the  thumb,  and  the  palm  of  each  hand,  and  the  fork 
downwards  between  them.  Over  the  meadow  grass 
they  walked  slowly,  then  suddenly  the  tip  of  the 
rod  began  to  turn  upwards  by  no  agency  of  which 
Edwin  was  aware.  It  was  very  thrilling,  for  his 
hands  were  quite  still. 

"There  you  are,"  said  his  uncle,  "you've  a  found 
our  water-pipe." 

"Hold  the  rod  down,  uncle,"  Edwin  said. 

He  did  so,  and  now  the  mysterious  force  was  so 
strong  that  the  arms  of  the  twig  snapped. 

"Now,  you've  gone  and  broke  it,"  said  Uncle  Will. 
"Come  in  or  you'll  catch  cold." 

They  went  in  together. 

"Well  .  .  .?"  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 

"Oh,  he's  a  proper  dowser,  sure  enough,"  said 
Uncle  Will. 

Edwin  was  still  curiously  thrilled  with  the  whole 
business.  He  felt  that  a  little  more  excitement  in 
his  attainment  was  due  to  him;  but  no  one,  not 
even  his  father,  seemed  in  the  least  impressed.  It 
comforted  him  to  think  that  his  cousin  Joe,  his 
eyes  fixed  on  his  book  in  the  corner,  had  really  less 


THE  HILLS  239 

in  common  than  himself  with  the  strange  dark  peo- 
ple from  whom  they  were  both  descended.  It  was 
better,  he  thought,  to  be  a  born  dowser  than  a 
Fellow  of  Balliol.  More  wonderful  still  to  be  both. 
All  the  rest  of  that  evening  he  felt  a  queer  elation 
in  his  mysterious  birthright,  and  when  his  father 
yawned  and  they  both  wTent  up  to  bed  he  lay  awake 
for  a  long  time  listening  to  the  drowsy  music  of 
the  corncrake  and  the  wail  of  hunting  owls,  trying 
to  put  himself  more  closely  in  touch  with  the  ro- 
mantic past  that  had  bred  him:  with  that  mag- 
nificent figure  his  grandfather,  and  the  innumerable 
strange  and  passionate  ancestry  that  slept  under 
the  shadow  of  Highberrow  church  on  the  Batch. 
"Yea,  I  have  a  goodly  heritage,"  he  thought.  And 
so  he  came  to  think  of  his  father,  through  whom 
these  things  came  to  him :  of  his  hard  achieve- 
ments, of  his  loneliness,  of  his  difficulty  of  express- 
ing— if  it  were  not  a  disinclination  to  express — all 
the  powerful  and  stormy  things  that  must  lie  hidden 
in  his  heart.  And  a  feeling  of  passionate  kinship 
carried  Edwin  away:  an  anxiety  to  show  his  love 
for  his  father  in  unmistakable  ways ;  to  make  clear 
to  him  once  and  for  all  the  depth  of  his  son's  de- 
votion. He  began  to  think  of  his  father  as  a  mother 
might  think  of  her  child.  It  must  have  been  in 
that  way,  he  imagined,  that  his  own  mother  had 
thought  of  her  husband.  The  night  was  so  still 
that  he  imagined  he  could  hear  the  rusty  ivory  of 
the  acacia-blossom  falling  at  the  gate. 


240        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

in 

They  were  in  the  train  on  their  way  home  from 
Bristol,  passing  smoothly  under  the  escarpment  of 
the  lower  Cotswolds.  The  fortnight  had  passed 
with  an  astounding  swiftness.  After  leaving  Wring- 
ford  they  had  cycled  over  the  back  of  Mendip,  past 
the  mines  at  Cold  Harbour,  where  they  had  paused 
for  half  an  hour  to  look  at  the  workings,  now  de- 
serted and  overgrown  with  ragwort  and  scabious, 
and  the  Koman  amphitheatre,  to  the  great  lime- 
stone gorge  above  Axcombe;  and  from  there  they 
had  ridden  to  Wells,  where,  beyond  streets  that 
flowed  eternally  with  limpid  water,  they  had  gazed 
on  the  wonder  of  the  cathedral  and  seen  the  white 
swans  floating  in  the  palace  moat  under  a  sky  that 
was  full  of  peace.  Only  for  a  moment  had  they 
seen  the  masts  of  Bristol  and  Kedeliffe's  dreamy 
spire;  and  now  in  a  few  hours  they  would  be  back 
in  Halesby :  in  another  world. 

As  they  travelled  northwards  Edwin  was  think- 
ing all  the  time  of  the  work  that  he  would  do  in 
his  little  room  above  the  bed  of  stocks.  It  should 
be  a  fragrant  room,  he  thought,  and  a  good  one  for 
reading,  for  when  his  attention  wandered  he  would 
be  able  to  lift  his  eyes  to  a  line  of  gentler  hills 
crowned  by  the  dark  folds  of  Shenstone's  hanging 
woods.  And  there  he  would  be  able  to  dream  of 
the  coloured  past  and  of  his  own  exciting  future, 
and  the  enchanted  life  that  he  would  soon  be  lead- 
ing among  the  noblest  works  of  men  in  letters  and 
in  stone.  Oxford,  his  Mecca  .  .  .  the  eternal  city 
of  his  dreams.  He  allowed  his  fancy  to  travel  west- 


THE  HILLS  241 

ward  over  the  rolling  Cotswold  and  droop  by  the 
slow  descent  of  river  valleys  to  that  sacred  place. 
His  father's  voice  dispelled  his  dream.  They  were 
alone  in  the  carriage  and  their  privacy  made  speak- 
ing easy. 

"Edwin  .  . .  I've  been  thinking  a  good  deal  about 
your  future." 

"Yes,  father?" 

"I've  been  thinking  it  over  in  my  own  mind.  I 
talked  it  over  a  week  or  two  ago  with  your  Uncle 
Albert.  He's  a  sound  man  of  business,  you  know. 
Then  I  felt  that  I  couldn't  trust  my  judgment:  the 
whole  world  was  upside  down ;  but  now  I  feel  that 
I  can  think  clearly,  and  of  course  I  am  anxious  to 
do  my  best  for  you.  I've  been  thinking  about  this 
Oxford  plan.  .  .  ." 

"Yes."  * 

"You  know  quite  well,  Edwin,  that  I'm  not  a 
rich  man.  I'm  a  very  poor  man.  You  can  under- 
stand that,  better  than  you  could  before,  after  this 
holiday.  And  when  people  have  very  limited  means 
and  are  getting  on  in  life — this  business  has  made 
me  an  old  man,  you  know — they  have  to  be  very 
careful  in  their  decisions.  Looking  at  it  from  every 
point  of  view,  I  don't  think  it  would  be  fair  of  me 
to  let  you  go  to  Oxford." 

"Father  .  .  .  what  do  you  mean?" 

"To  begin  with,  there's  the  expense." 

"But  I  shall  get  a  scholarship.  I'll  work  like 
anything.  I'll  make  sure  of  it." 

"I'm  sure  you  would.  You're  a  good  boy.  But 
that  isn't  everything  by  a  long  way.  When  you've 
got  your  scholarship,  supposing  you  do  get  it,  the 


242         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

expense  would  begin.  I  shouldn't  like  you  to  feel 
at  a  hopeless  disadvantage  with  men  of  your  own 
year.  You  would  have  to  live  quite  a  different  life 
from  them.  You  wouldn't  be  able  to  afford  any  of 
their  pleasures." 

"I  shouldn't  want  their  pleasures." 

"That  is  a  rash  thing  to  say.  But  I'm  looking 
even  farther  ahead.  What  can  you  expect  to  do 
when  you've  taken  a  degree  in  Arts?" 

"A  fellowship.  .  .  ." 

"Ah,  but  that  is  a  matter  of  considerable  uncer- 
tainty. I've  seen  so  many  men  who  have  managed 
to  scrape  through  a  university  degree  and  then  been 
thrown  on  the  world  in  a  state  of  miserable  poverty. 
Look  at  Mr.  Kelly  at  the  grammar-school.  You 
wouldn't  like  to  live  his  life;  but  I  believe  he  has 
quite  a  brilliant  university  career  behind  him.  No 
...  I  don't  think  it  would  be  fair  to  you." 

"But  mother  and  I  always  said  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  I  know  .  .  .  you  were  a  pair  of  dreamers, 
both  of  you.  If  you  felt  any  very  strong  desire 
to  become  a  parson  there  might  be  something  in 
it,  though  that,  too,  is  a  miserable  life  often  enough. 
But  you  don't,  do  you?" 

"No  ...  of  course  not." 

"So  I  think  that  while  I  am  living  you  should 
have  the  chance  of  learning  a  useful  profession. 
What  about  doctoring?" 

"But  that  would  be  expensive  too." 

"I  know  that  .  .  .  but  I  think  we  could  do  it. 
We  should  have  a  little  in  common.  I  might  even 
be  able  to  help  you.  And  in  a  way  ...  in  a  way 
I  should  feel  that  in  you  I  was  realising  some  of 


THE  HILLS  243 

my  own  old  ambitions.  It  is  a  noble  profession, 
Eddie:  the  most  humane  in  the  world.  No  one 
need  ever  be  ashamed  of  being  a  doctor.  I  think 
that  a  parson  who  professes  religion  for  the  sake 
of  a  living  is  rather  to  be  despised." 

"Father,  I'm  sure  it  would  cost  too  much.  Six 
years,  you  know.  .  .  ." 

"Five  .  .  .  only  five,  if  you  pass  all  your  examina- 
tions. And  it  need  not  be  so  expensive  as  you 
think.  During  the  last  year  they  have  turned  the 
old  College  in  North  Bromwich  into  a  University. 
They  give  a  degree  in  medicine.  And  while  you 
were  studying  there  you  could  still  live  with  me  at 
Halesby.  I  should  be  glad  of  your  company." 

This  appeal  to  Edwin's  pity  was  difficult  to  re- 
sist. It  recalled  to  him  all  the  resolutions  that  he 
had  made  in  the  night  at  Wringf ord :  the  devotion 
with  which  he  had  determined  to  devote  himself  to 
his  father's  welfare:  the  determination  that  he 
should  never  do  anything  that  could  cause  the  man 
a  moment's  pain.  It  was  difficult  .  .  .  difficult. 

"You  could  still  get  your  scholarship,"  his  father 
went  on.  "There  are  several  endowments  of  that 
kind  at  the  North  Bromwich  medical  school.  I 
have  a  pamphlet  at  home  that  gives  all  the  particu- 
lars. I  had  even  shown  it  to  your  mother." 

"And  what  did  she  say,  father?" 

"She  didn't  say  much.  She  knew  it  would  be  a 
great  disappointment  to  you.  But  I  think  she  real- 
ised that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  you;  and  I 
know  she  looked  forward  to  having  you  at  home." 

"Yes  .  .  .  she  must  have  known  what  a  disap- 


244         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

pointment  it  would  be.  Father,  I  wish  you  would 
think  it  over  again." 

"I  want  you  to  think  it  over,  too.  At  present 
it  naturally  comes  as  a  shock  to  you;  but  I  think 
you'll  see  in  time.  .  .  ." 

He  couldn't  see.  He  knew  that  he  could  never 
see  it  in  that  light.  It  was  going  to  take  all  the 
beauty  that  he  had  conceived  out  of  his  life.  It 
was  going  to  ruin  all  his  happiness.  In  place  of 
light  and  cleanliness  and  learning  it  was  going  to 
give  him  .  .  .  what?  The  darkness  of  a  smoky 
city;  its  grime;  the  mean  ideals  of  the  people  who 
lived  beneath  its  ugliness.  Even  <the  memory  of 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  had  thought  of  the 
life  of  old  Dr.  Marshall,  his  father's  patron,  couldn't 
mitigate  the  dreariness  of  the  prospect.  The  idea 
of  living  for  ever  in  company  with  dirt  and 
misery  and  harrowing  disease  repelled  him.  It 
was  no  good  telling  him  that  contact  with  these 
misfortunes  developed  the  nobler  faculties  of  man. 
It  was  not  the  life  that  he  had  wanted.  His  soul 
sent  forth  a  cry  of  exceeding  bitterness.  And  while 
he  sat  there,  full  of  misery  and  resentment,  the 
train  was  carrying  them  onward  into  the  gloom 
that  always  overshadowed  the  City  of  Iron. 


BOOK  II 


.  .  .  so  that  with  much  ado  I  was 
corrupted,  and  made  to  learn  the 
dirty  devices  of  the  world. 

THOMAS  TRAHERNB. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  CITY  OP  IRON 


HE  city  of  iron  stands  upon  three  hills  and  its 
A  valleys  were  once  watered  by  two  rivers;  but 
since  the  day  when  its  name  was  humbly  written 
in  Doomsday  these  pastoral  features  have  disap- 
peared, so  that  the  hills  are  only  known  as  tramway 
gradients  that  testify  to  the  excellence  of  the  Cor- 
poration's power  station,  and  the  rivers,  running 
in  brick  culverts,  have  been  deprived  not  only  of 
their  liberty  but  even  of  their  natural  function  of 
receiving  a  portion  of  the  city's  gigantic  sewage. 
The  original  market  of  North  Bromwich  has  been 
not  so  much  debauched  from  without,  in  the  manner 
of  other  growing  towns,  as  organised  from  within 
by  the  development  of  its  own  inherent  powers  for 
evil.  It  is  not  a  place  from  which  men  have  wil- 
fully cast  out  beauty  so  much  as  one  from  which 
beauty  has  vanished  in  spite  of  man's  pitiful  aspira- 
tions to  preserve  it.  Indeed,  its  citizens  are  objects 
rather  for  pity  than  for  reproach,  and  would  be 
astonished  to  receive  either,  for  many  of  them  are 
wealthy,  and  from  their  childhood,  knowing  no 
better,  have  believed  that  wealth  is  a  justification 
and  an  apology  for  every  mortal  evil  from  ugliness 


to  original  sin. 


249 


250         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

In  the  heart  of  the  city  the  sense  of  power,  im- 
pressive if  malignant,  is  so  overwhelming  that  one 
cannot  see  the  monstrosity  as  a  whole  and  can  al- 
most understand  the  blindness  of  its  inhabitants. 
Go,  rather,  to  the  hills  beyond  Halesby,  to  Uffdown 
and  Pen  Beacon,  where,  with  a  choice  of  prospects, 
one  may  turn  from  the  dreamy  plain  of  Severn  and 
the  cloudy  splendours  of  Silurian  hills,  to  its  pillars 
of  cloud  by  day  and  its  pillars  of  fire  by  night ;  and 
perhaps  in  that  remoter  air  you  may  realise  the 
city's  true  significance  as  a  phenomenon  of  un- 
conquered  if  not  inevitable  disease.  If  you  are  a 
physician,  you  will  realise  that  this  evil  has  its 
counterpart  in  human  tissues,  where  a  single  cell, 
that  differs  not  at  all  from  other  cells  and  is  a 
natural  unitln  the  organism,  may  suddenly  and,  as 
it  seems,  unreasonably  acquire  a  faculty  of  mon- 
strous and  malignant  growth,  cleaving  and  multi- 
plying to  the  destruction  of  its  fellows — a  cell  gone 
mad,  to  which  the  ancients  gave  the  name  of  cancer. 

The  inhabitants  of  North  Bromwich,  who  are  a 
tolerant  people,  and  proud  of  the  fact,  wrould  smile 
at  this  reflection.  They  are  not  in  the  habit  of 
surveying  the  midden  in  which  they  are  bred  from 
remote  hilltops,  except  on  Bank  Holidays,  at  which 
time  they  have  discovered  a  truth  from  which  they 
might  learn  more :  that  with  the  aid  of  hill  air  and 
exercise,  whether  it  be  that  of  cocoanut  shies  or 
swing-boats,  or  the  more  hazardous  pursuit  of  don- 
key-riding, it  is  possible  to  absorb  a  greater  quan- 
tity of  alcohol  in  a  given  time  without  unduly 
suffering  than  in  the  atmosphere  of  their  own 
streets.  But  they  have  not  time  to  learn,  and  since 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  251 

they  have  never  known  any  other  conditions  of 
living,  they  exhibit  the  admirable  human  character- 
istic of  making  the  best  of  their  surroundings  and 
persuading  themselves  that  their  hallucinated  ex- 
istence is  typical  of  human  life.  They  are  even 
eager,  pathetically  eager,  to  find  and  to  proclaim 
its  virtues,  and  that  they  may  do  this  more  easily 
they 'have  invented  specious  names  for  the  disease 
and  its  results:  Industry  for  the  first,  and,  for 
the  second,  Progress. 

In  the  vindication  of  a  Municipal  Conscience 
(making  the  best  of  a  bad  job)  they  periodically 
extend  the  area  over  which  their  coat  of  arms,  a 
reminder  of  days  when  chivalry  existed,  is  dis- 
played. The  coat  of  arms  itself  is  an  unfortunate 
symbol,  for  it  is  supported  by  the  figure  of  a  brawny 
slave  who  carries  the  hammer  with  which  his  chains 
have  been  forged ;  but  the  motto  at  least  is  encourag- 
ing. It  is  the  word  "Forward,"  expressing  the 
aspirations  of  the  citizens  towards  the  day  when 
all  England  may  be  as  the  Black  Country.  The 
watcher  on  Uffdown  may  give  it  a  more  far-sighted 
significance :  "forward,  to  the  day  when  there  shall 
be  no  more  coal,  and  the  evil,  of  its  own  inanition, 
perish." 

For  the  present,  at  any  rate,  the  city  showed  no 
signs  of  perishing.  During  the  last  year  or  two, 
its  tentacles  had  spread  farther  than  ever  before, 
swarming  into  the  wet  and  lonely  valley  of  the 
Dulas  Fechan,  a  deep  cleft  in  the  mountains  beyond 
Felindre  where  a  noisy  river  ran  through  under- 
growth older  than  man's  memory.  From  this  val- 
ley, the  council  had  decreed,  the  rain  of  the  Savad- 


£52         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

dan  watershed,  which  geology  had  destined  for  the 
Wye  and  later  for  the  Atlantic,  must  now  traverse 
eighty  miles  or  more  of  conquered  territory,  and 
after  being  defouled  by  the  domestic  usages  of 
North  Bromwich,  must  find  its  way  into  the  Trent, 
and  so  to  the  German  Ocean,  as  the  Komans 
thoughtlessly  labelled  the  North  Sea.  "Water," 
said  the  Mayor,  who  was  also  known  as  Sir  Joseph 
Astill,  the  brewer,  "water  is  one  of  the  necessities 
of  life.  It  is  our  duty  to  the  public  to  see  that 
they  have  it,  and  that  they  have  it  pure  and  un- 
adulterated." 

So  the  Welsh  water  came,  and  the  altruistic 
baronet  took  the  credit  for  it.  Indeed  the  pro- 
gressive spirit  of  North  Bromwich  found  its  incar- 
nation in  this  fleshy  gentleman.  It  was  he  who 
presented  the  municipal  art  gallery  with  their  un- 
rivalled collection  of  Madox-Jones  cartoons,  to  say 
nothing  of  three  portraits  of  himself  exemplifying 
(he  had  an  elegant  vocabulary)  the  styles  of  the 
three  greatest  portrait  painters  of  modern  times. 
It  was  he  who  saved  the  art  of  music  from  degrada- 
tion by  fighting,  with  all  the  weight  of  his  personal 
influence,  against  the  performance  of  secular  music, 
music,  that  is,  divorced  from  "sacred"  words,  upon 
the  Sabbath.  It  was  he,  again,  who  aroused  public 
feeling  on  the  question  of  the  university :  "the  first 
Modern  university,"  he  called  it. 

He  accomplished  its  endowment,  equipped  it  with 
a  principal  whose  name  was  a  household  word  in 
the  homes  of  the  great  middle  classes;  and  finally 
Bet  the  seal  of  modernity  on  his  creation,  less  than 
twenty  years  before  the  total  prohibition  of  alcohol 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  253 

became  law  in  retrograde  America,  by  instituting 
a  learned  faculty  and  providing  a  degree  in  the 
science  of  ...  brewing.  Just  as  an  example  of  the 
city's  liberality,  there  was  also  a  faculty  of  Arts. 
The  faculty  of  Science,  of  course,  was  important, 
if  only  as  an  appendage  to  the  brewing  school; 
those  of  Engineering  and  Mining  flattered  the  in- 
dustries of  the  district;  that  of  Commerce  taught 
its  graduates  to  write  business  letters  in  every 
spoken  tongue  and  give  the  Yankees  what  for ;  and 
lastly,  that  of  Medicine,  supplied  a  necessary  anti- 
dote to  the  activities  of  most  of  the  others. 

Sir  Joseph  Astill  was  proud,  as  well  he  might  be, 
of  the  Medical  School.  "In  this  city,"  he  boasted, 
"there  are  actually  more  hospital  beds  per  centum 
of  inhabitants  than  in  any  other  in  the  whole  coun- 
try. The  North  Bromwich  medical  student  has  a 
greater  opportunity  of  studying  disease,  in  all  ita 
aspects,  than  the  alumnus  of  any  other  school  in 
the  world.  Thousands  of  beds  lie  waiting  for  hia 
scrutiny;  and  I  am  glad  to  say  that  very  few  of 
them  are  ever  empty." 

Edwin's  first  serious  acquaintance  with  North 
Bromwich  had  begun  at  the  end  of  the  summer 
holidays,  through  which  he  had  worked  with  a  good 
deal  less  than  the  fiery  enthusiam  that  he  would 
have  put  into  his  reading  for  the  Balliol  scholar- 
ship. The  syllabus  of  the  examination  for  the 
Astill  Exhibition  had  amazed  him  by  its  simplicity : 
the  prescribed  books  were  works  that  he  had  ab- 
sorbed some  years  before  at  St.  Luke's,  and  though 
the  mathematical  side  of  the  business  worried  him, 
as  it  had  always  done,  it  was  clear  that  in  North 


254         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Bromwich  the  classics  were  regarded  really  as  a 
polite  accomplishment  rather  than  as  an  integral 
part  of  a  gentleman's  equipment  in  life:  so  that 
these  drowsy  summer  months  were  really  a  period 
of  comparative  idleness  in  which  he  had  time  to 
brood  on  his  regrets  and  become  gradually  recon- 
ciled to  his  new  fate.  In  this  spirit  he  approached 
the  examination.  Even  the  capitoline  eminence/m 
which  the  university  buildings  were  placed,  with 
the  tremendous  renaissance  buildings  of  the  Coun- 
cil House  and  the  Corinthian  Town  Hall,  did  not 
greatly  impress  him.  He  saw  rather  the  squalid 
slums  from  which  these  pretentious  buildings  rose. 
It  was  so  different,  he  thought,  from  Oxford,  and 
he  passed  the  flagged  courtyard  with  its  cool  foun- 
tain and  the  benevolent  statue  of  Sir  Joseph  Astill 
in  a  frock  coat  and  carrying  a  rolled  umbrella  on 
which  the  sculptor  had  lavished  all  the  feeling  of 
his  art,  without  the  least  shadow  of  spiritual  obei- 
sance. 

With  two  other  long-legged  candidates  he  had 
worked  through  his  papers  in  a  small  room  whose 
windows  overlooked  the  quiet  square  and  a  phan- 
tom stream  of  noiseless  traffic  beyond.  The  first 
paper  had  been  mathematical,  and  its  intricacies 
kept  his  mind  so  busy  that  he  had  little  time  for  re- 
flection. From  time  to  time  he  would  see  one  of 
the  long-legged  competitors  reducing  the  end  of  his 
penholder  to  wood-pulp  in  the  earnestness  of  rumi- 
nant thought;  and  occasionally  the  deep  boom  of 
the  clock  in  the  tower  of  the  Art  Gallery  would 
remind  him  that  time  was  veritably  passing;  but 
time  passed  swiftly,  and  he  was  almost  surprised 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  255 

to  find  himself  once  more  in  an  air  that  for  all 
its  vitiation  was  less  sleepy  than  that  of  the  sealed 
examination  room.  By  the  end  of  the  first  evening 
all  that  he  feared  in  the  examination  papers  was 
over.  To-morrow  he  would  be  on  his  own  ground 
and  the  modern  university  could  do  its  damnedest. 

Next  day  the  classical  papers  were  distributed 
and  Edwin,  who  found  them  easy,  could  see  that 
his  pen-chewing  friend  was  in  a  bad  way.  All  the 
passages  set  for  translation  were  familiar:  the 
grammatical  questions  consisted  of  old  catches  that 
had  been  drilled  into  him  by  Mr.  Leeming  in  the 
Upper  Fourth.  As  far  as  he  was  concerned,  it  was 
a  walk  over.  He  had  time  to  take  in  more  of  his 
surroundings  and  to  watch  the  silent  coloured 
stream  of  traffic  filtering  through  the  narrows 
where  the  bulk  of  the  Town  Hall  constricted  the 
street.  At  the  end  of  each  day  he  found  his  father 
anxiously  awaiting  him.  He  was  eager  to  see  and 
handle  the  examination  papers  for  himself.  He 
seemed  impressed  by  their  difficulty,  and  Edwin 
found  it  hard  to  reassure  him  without  appearing 
objectionably  superior.  He  seemed  rather  surprised 
that  Edwin,  on  the  eve  of  such  a  formidable  ordeal, 
should  choose  to  take  out  his  bicycle  and  ride  to- 
wards the  hills,  so  surprised  that  it  became  a  matter 
for  serious  debate  with  Edwin  whether  he  should  do 
as  he  wanted  to  do  and  appear  priggish,  or  affect 
an  anxiety  that  didn't  exist  merely  to  please  his 
father.  In  the  end  he  decided  to  be  honest  at  all 
costs. 

The  part  of  the  examination  that  he  enjoyed 
most  was  the  viva-voce  in  Classics.  For  this  trial 


256         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

he  was  led  up  many  flights  of  stone  steps  to  a  room 
full  of  books  in  which  the  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of 
Arts  awaited  him :  a  kindly,  nervous  old  man  with 
a  grey  beard,  with  whom  Edwin  immediately  felt 
at  home.  His  nervousness  seemed  to  Edwin  ap- 
propriate: it  implied  the  indubitable  fact  that  in 
North  Bromwich  Arts  was  a  sideshow  that  counted 
for  nothing,  and  that  the  professor's  dignity,  as 
Dean  of  a  learned  Faculty,  was  a  precarious  and 
^insubstantial  thing.  "Your  papers  were  excellent, 
:  .  .  excellent,"  he  said  to  begin  with.  "Now,  I 
should  like  you  to  read  me  something."  He  pointed 
to  a  bookshelf.  "Let  us  start  with  some  Greek." 

"What  would  you  like,  sir?" 

"Oh,  it's  not  what  I  should  like.  What  would 
you  like  to  read?  Something  that  really  appeals 
to  you." 

Edwin  felt  that  the  dean  was  watching  him,  like 
ia  cat  stalking  a  bird,  as  his  fingers  approached  the 
bookshelf.  It  was  a  curious  responsibility,  for  it 
would  be  an  awful  shame,  if  he  chose  something 
that  the  old  man  didn't  approve  of.  Sophocles.  .  . . 
!Why  not  Sophocles? 

He  picked  out  the  Antigone,  and  chose  the  great 
chorus : — 

*Epws  bvlKare  ju&xcw,1 

"Epcos,  6s  cv  KTiyjuatri  TrtTrets,  .  .  . 

"Let's  have  it  in  Greek  first." 

Edwin  read  it  in  the  level  voice  which  the  Head 
of  St.  Luke's  had  always  used  for  the  recitation  of 
Greek  poetry.  When  he  had  finished  the  first 
strophe  he  looked  up  and  saw  that  the  Dean's  weak 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  257 

eyes,  beneath  their  tortoiseshell  spectacles,  were 
brimming  with  tears. 

"That  will  do,"  he  said,  "unless  you'd  prefer  to 
go  on  .  .  ." 

Edwin  read  the  antistrophe. 

"Yes  ...  I  don't  think  you  need  translate  it," 
said  the  Dean.  He  paused  for  a  moment,  then, 
replacing  the  volume,  went  on.  "In  this  university 
I  am  known  as  the  Professor  of  Dead  Languages. 
Dead  languages.  What?" 

They  passed  a  pleasant  half-hour  together.  In 
Latin  Edwin  chose  Lucretius  and  a  passage  from 
the  Georgics,  at  the  end  of  which  the  Dean  confided 
to  him  that  he  kept  bees.  "Thank  you,  that  will 
do,"  he  said.  "I  gather  that  you  are  entering  the 
Medical  School.  .  .  .  Well,  it  is  a  noble  profession. 
I  don't  know  what  we  should  do  without  doctors, 
I'm  sure." 

Four  days  later  Mr.  Ingleby  received  him  at  the 
breakfast  table  with  unconcealed  emotion.  "You've 
got  your  scholarship,  Edwin.  I'm  .  .  .  I'm  as 
pleased  as  if  I'd  won  it  myself.  I  never  had  the 
opportunity  of  winning  a  scholarship  in  my  life." 
The  hand  in  which  he  held  the  letter  trembled. 
He  kissed  Edwin  fervently.  "This  is  a  great  day 
for  me,"  he  said:  and  Edwin,  glowing,  felt  that 
anything  was  worth  while  that  could  give  such 
pleasure  to  the  man  that  he  had  determined  to  love. 


On  a  bright  morning  at  the  beginning  of  Septem- 
ber Edwin  found  himself  one  of  a  crowd  of  ten  or 
fifteen  youths,  waiting  with  a  varying  degree  of 


258         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

assurance,  outside  the  office  of  the  Dean  of  the  Med- 
ical" Faculty  in  James  Street,  a  sordid  thorough- 
fare in  which  the  pretentious  buildings  of  the  old 
College  of  Science  hid  its  hinder  quarters.  The  door 
was  small,  and  only  distinguished  from  its  neigh- 
bours, a  steam  laundry  and  brassworker's  office, 
by  a  plate  that  bore  the  inscription,  "University  of 
North  Broinwich.  Medical  School."  Inside  the 
door  stood  a  wooden  box  for  a  porter,  usually  empty, 
but  in  its  moments  of  occupation  surveying  a  long, 
dark  cloakroom  with  a  hundred  or  more  numbered 
lockers  and  corresponding  clothes-hooks,  on  a  few 
of  which  undergraduates'  gowns  and  battered  mor- 
tar-boards were  hanging.  This  morning  the  Dean 
was  holding  audience  of  all  the  first  year  men,  and 
each  of  the  crowd  in  which  Edwin  now  found  him- 
self a  negligible  unit,  was  waiting  until  his  name 
should  be  called  from  the  office,  and,  in  the  mean- 
time, surveying  his  companions  with  suspicion  and 
being  surveyed  with  a  more  confident  and  collec- 
tive suspicion  by  seniors  who  happened  to  drift 
through  the  corridors  on  business  or  idleness,  and 
showed  evidence  of  their  initiation  by  familiarity 
with  the  porter. 

Only  one  face  in  the  company  was  in  the  least 
familiar  to  Edwin :  that  of  a  ponderous  young  man 
with  immaculate  black  hair  carefully  parted  in  the 
middle,  who  had  sat  stolidly  through  the  Astill  Ex- 
hibition examination  a  few  desks  away  from  him. 
As  he  did  not  appear  to  be  anxious  to  recognise 
this  fact,  Edwin  abandoned  his  own  intention  of 
doing  so,  and,  like  the  rest  of  the  company,  pos- 
sessed his  soul  in  silence.  In  the  meantime  he 


JHE  CITY  OF  IRON  259 

watched  the  others  with  a  good  deal  of  interest  and 
speculation. 

1  They  were  a  strangely  mixed  company:  a  few 
of  them,  of  whom  Edwin  himself  was  one,  mere 
boys,  to  whom  the  air  of  the  schoolroom  still  clung : 
some  obvious  men  of  the  world,  scrupulously,  even 
doggily  dressed,  in  an  age  when  the  fancy  waist- 
coat had  reached  the  zenith  of  its  daring;  others, 
and  one  other  in  particular,  a  seedy  looking  person 
with  a  dejected  fair  moustache,  were  clearly  old 
enough  to  be  the  fathers  of  the  youngest.  It  was 
to  the  second  of  these  classes,  the  bloods,  that 
Edwin  found  his  attention  attracted,  and  particu- 
larly to  a  paragon  of  elegance,  whose  waistcoat  was 
the  orange  colour  of  a  blackbird's  bill  with  light 
blue  enamelled  buttons,  whose  hair  was  mathemati- 
cally bisected  and  shone  with  expensive  unguents, 
and  whose  chin  differed  from  that  of  Edwin  in  being 
shaved  from  sheer  necessity  instead  of  from  motives 
of  encouragement. 

This  person  exuded  an  atmosphere  of  prosperity 
and  style  that  took  Edwin's  fancy  immensely,  and 
he  wore  grey  flannel  trousers  as  correctly  turned 
up  as  any  that  Edwin  had  seen  upon  the  enchanted 
platform  of  the  station  at  Oxford.  It  was  evident 
that  the  process  of  waiting  bored  him ;  for  he  took 
out  of  the  pocket  of  the  amazing  waistcoat  a  gold 
hunter  watch  with  a  front  enamelled  in  the  same 
shade  of  light  blue.  The  lid  flicked  upon  noiselessly 
when  he  touched  a  spring,  and  Edwin  began  to  be 
exercised  in  his  mind  as  to  what  happened  when 
he  put  on  a  waistcoat  of  a  different  pattern,  as  ob- 
viously a  person  of  this  degree  of  magnificence  must 


2<5o         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

frequently  do.  Did  he  change  the  buttons,  or  did 
lie  change  the  watch?  Edwin,  surveying  him, 
looked  unconsciously  at  his  own  Waterbury;  and, 
as  he  did  so,  the  magnificent  creature  glanced  at 
him  with  a  pair  of  savage  brown  eyes,  and,  as  Edwin 
decided,  summed  him  up  for  good  and  all. 

"Mr.  Harrop,  please,"  said  the  porter.  And  Mr. 
Harrop  pocketed  his  hunter  and  disdainfully  en- 
tered the  office. 

Edwin,  relieved  from  his  scrutiny,  turned  his  at- 
tention to  the  most  impressive  figure  of  all :  a  young 
man  fully  six  feet  four  in  height,  but  so  broadly 
and  heavily  built  that  his  tallness  was  scarcely 
noticeable.  His  face  was  good-humoured,  and  very 
plain,  with  the  look  of  battered  obstinacy  that  may 
sometimes  be  seen  in  that  of  a  boxer.  Perhaps  thia 
idea  was  reinforced  by  the  fact  that  his  short  nose 
was  broken,  and  that  he  carried  his  whole  face  a 
little  forward,  staring  out  at  the  world  from  under 
bushy  black  eyebrows.  He  seemed  made  for  rough 
usage,  and  his  undoubted  strength  was  qualified  by 
a  degree  of  awkwardness  that  showed  itself  in  his 
clumsy  hands.  These,  at  the  present  time,  were 
clasped  behind  his  back,  beneath  the  folds  of  a 
brand-new  undergraduate's  gown  that,  because  of 
his  great  height,  looked  ridiculously  small.  His 
whole  aspect  was  one  of  terrific  earnestness.  Evi- 
dently he  was  taking  this  business,  as  he  would 
surely  have  taken  any  other,  seriously.  That,  no 
doubt,  was  the  reason  why  on  this  occasion  he  alone 
appeared  in  academical  dress.  His  clasped  hands, 
his  lowered  head,  his  bulldog  neck  all  spoke  of  a 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  261 

determination  to  go  through  with  this  adventure  at 
all  costs. 

"Mr.  Brown,"  said  the  porter,  and  nearly  blun- 
dering into  the  returning  elegance  of  Mr.  Harrop, 
he  slouched  into  the  Dean's  office  as  though  he 
were  entering  the  ring  for  the  heavy-weight  cham- 
pionship of  the  world. 

In  the  end  Edwin  found  himself  left  alone  with  a 
youth  of  his  own  age,  a  tall,  loose-limbed  creature, 
with  an  indefinite  humorous  face,  a  close  crop  of 
curly  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes.  Edwin  rather  liked 
the  look  of  him.  He  was  young,  and  seemed  ap- 
proachable, and  though  his  striped  flannel  suit  was 
more  elegant  than  Edwin's  and  he  wore  a  school 
tie  of  knitted  silk,  Edwin  took  the  risk  of  address- 
ing him. 

"We  seem  to  be  the  last." 

"Yes.  I  expect  the  Dean  will  keep  me  last  of 
all,  bad  cess  to  him!  That's  because  I  happen  to 
be  a  sort  of  cousin  of  the  old  devil's."  He  spoke 
with  a  soft  brogue  that  had  come  from  the  south 
of  Ireland. 

"Mr.  Ingleby,  please/' 

Edwin  pulled  himself  together  and  entered  the 
Dean's  office. 

A  pleasant  room :  at  one  big  desk  a  suave,  clean- 
shaven gentleman  with  thin  sandy  hair  and  gold- 
rimmed  spectacles.  At  another  a  little  dark  man 
with  a  bald  head  and  a  typewriter  in  front  of  him. 

"Mr.  Ingleby?"  said  the  first.  His  voice  was  re- 
fined, if  a  little  too  precise. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Well,  Mr.  Ingleby,  what  are  you  going  to  do? 


£62         JHE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Ah,  yes  .  .  .  you  are  the  Astill  scholar.  Very  good. 
Very  good.  Are  you  proposing  to  take  a  London 
degree?" 

"No,  sir.    North  Bromwich." 

"Well  ...  it  is  possible  you  may  change  your 
mind  later.  Have  you  taken  the  London  Matricu- 
lation ?" 

"No,  sir.  I  was  on  the  classical  side  at  St.  Luke's. 
I  was  reading  for  a  scholarship  at  Oxford." 

"And  changed  your  mind  .  .  .  or"  (shrewdly) 
"had  it  changed  for  you?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Is  your  father  a  doctor?" 

"No."  It  really  doesn't  matter  what  my  father 
is,  thought  Edwin,  and  the  Dean,  as  though  answer- 
ing his  reflection,  said : — 

"No.  .  .  .  That  doesn't  matter."  And,  after  a 
pause:  "Well,  Mr.  ...  er  ...  Ingleby,  you  have 
made  a  good  beginning.  I  hope  it  will  continue 
satisfactorily.  That  is  all,  thank  you.  Good-morn- 
ing." He  held  out  his  hand  to  Edwin,  who  was 
astonished  into  putting  out  a  moist  hand  himself. 
"Yes,"  continued  the  Dean  in  a  suave,  reflective 
voice,  "you  will  pay  your  fees  to  my  secretary,  Mr. 
Hadley.  This  is  ...  er  ...  Mr.  Hadley.  Yes." 

Mr.  Hadley  acknowledged  the  introduction  with 
a  lift  of  the  right  eyebrow  and  Edwin  left  the  room. 

"Mr.  Martin,"  said  the  secretary,  as  he  left,  and 
"Mr.  Martin,  please,"  the  porter  repeated. 

"I  say,  wait  a  moment  for  me,"  said  the  loose- 
limbed  Irishman  to  Edwin  in  passing. 

It  was  so  friendly  as  to  be  cheering. 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  263 

"He  seems  a  decent  old  bird,"  said  Martin,  emerg* 
ing  a  few  minutes  later. 

"I  thought  you  said  he  was  your  cousin?" 

"So  he  is.  You  see  I'm  Irish,  and  so  is  he;  and 
in  Ireland  pretty  nearly  everybody  who  is  anybody 
is  related  to  everybody  else."  He  plunged  into  a 
lengthy  demonstration  of  the  relationships  of  the 
Southern  aristocracy,  with  warnings  as  to  the  gulfs 
that  separated  the  Martins  from  the  Martyns,  and 
the  Plunketts  from  the  Plunkets,  rambling  away 
through  a  world  of  high-breeding  and  penury  in 
which  all  the  inhabitants  called  each  other  by  their 
Christian  names,  and  spent  their  lives  in  hunting, 
point-to-point  racing,  and  elaborate  practical  jokes. 
A.  new  world  to  Edwin. 

They  strolled  down  Sackville  How  together,  and 
cutting  through  the  Arcades  came  out  into  the  wide 
thoroughfare  of  Queen  Street  that  had  been  driven 
through  an  area  of  slums  in  honour  of  Victoria's 
first  jubilee. 

"By  the  way,  what's  your  school?"  said  Denis 
Martin. 

"St,  Luke's." 

"Never  heard  of  it." 

"I  don't  suppose  you  would,  in  Ireland." 

"Oh,  I  didn't  go  to  school  in  Ireland.  Nobody 
does.  I  was  at  Maryborough.  Is  St.  Luke's  one  of 
those  soccer  schools?" 

"Good  Lord,  no.  ...  We  play  rugger.  We're 
pretty  good." 

"Who  do  you  play?" 

"Merchant  Taylors  and  St.  Paul's,  and  one  or 
two  others." 


264         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"H'm.  .  .  .  They're  day  schools,  aren't  they?  Is 
St.  Luke's  that  sort?" 

Edwin,  with  enthusiasm,  expounded  the  St. 
Luke's  legend,  that  nobody  outside  of  St.  Luke's  has 
ever  been  known  to  believe.  Martin,  meanwhile, 
looked  a  little  supercilious  and  bored.  He  spoke 
as  from  a  distant  world  in  a  tone  that  implied  that 
the  people  of  North  Bromwich  could  never  call  each 
other  by  their  Christian  names  or  hunt  or  race  or 
play  practical  jokes  with  an  air  of  being  born  to  it. 

"I  expect  we're  a  pretty  mixed  lot  here,"  he  said. 

And  Edwin,  with  the  guilty  consciousness  of  be- 
ing more  than  a  little  mixed  himself,  replied :  "Yes." 

"An  extraordinary  collection.  That  great  dark 
fellow  looks  an  absolute  tyke.  Then  there's  the 
chap  with  the  waistcoat " 

"Yes.  .  .  .    Harrop  was  the  name." 

"I  don't  know  the  name,"  said  Martin  dubiously. 
"Never  heard  of  the  family.  He  was  wearing  an 
Oriel  tie." 

"Oriel.  .  .  .     Do  you  mean  Oxford?" 

"Yes,  one  of  my  cousins  was  there.  That's  how 
I  know  it.  I  should  think  they  turfed  him  out  on 
account  of  that  waistcoat.  Still,  Oxford  isn't  what 
it  used  to  be."  "In  the  eyes  of  a  Southern  Union- 
ist," he  might  have  added.  But  the  news  was  grate- 
ful to  Edwin.  "I  shouldn't  wonder,"  Martin  went 
on,  "if  lots  of  decent  people  didn't  end  by  coming 
to  schools  like  this.  I  expect  it  is  the  Dean's  idea, 
you  know.  I  say,  what  about  lunch?  Do  you  know 
of  any  decent  place?" 

In  ancient  days,  when  he  had  come  into  North 
Bromwich  shopping  with  his  mother,  Edwin  had 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  265 

always  been  taken  to  Battle's,  the  great  confec- 
tioner's in  Queen  Street,  but  now,  passing  the  doors 
in  this  exalted  company,  he  felt  that  the  company 
of  a  crowd  of  shabby  shopping  women  would  hardly 
be  suitable:  besides,  he  might  even  run  the  risk 
of  meeting  his  Aunt  Laura,  who  also  frequented 
the  shop,  so  he  left  Battie's  prudently  alone. 

"I  know  one  place,"  said  Martin.  "I  should  think 
it's  all  right.  The  food's  decent  anyway." 

He  led  the  way  up  a  side  street  to  an  elegant 
resort  frequented  by  the  professional  classes  of 
North  Bromwich,  where  these  was  a  long  counter 
set  out  with  sandwiches  like  a  buffet  at  a  dance, 
and  all  the  customers  seemed  at  home.  In  the 
ordinary  way  Edwin  would  not  have  dared  to  enter 
it,  but  Martin,  with  the  elegant  confidence  of  South- 
ern Unionism,  showed  him  the  way,  and  seated  at 
a  marble-topped  table  they  trifled  with  Plover  on 
toast.  Martin,  of  course,  did  the  choosing,  and  in 
his  dealings  with  the  tiny  carcass  showed  a  famili- 
arity with  the  correct  method  of  consuming  small 
birds  that  Edwin  was  pleased  to  learn.  "Ever  shoot 
plover?"  he  said.  No  .  .  .  Edwin  had  never  shot 
anything :  he  didn't  particularly  want  to  shoot  any- 
thing; but  he  realised  that  it  was  a  great  accom- 
plishment to  be  able  to  talk  about  it  as  though  he 
had  never  done  anything  else. 

"I'll  pay,"  said  Martin.  "We  can  square  up  after- 
wards." 

They  did  so  and,  thawed  by  the  process  of  feed- 
ing, began  to  talk  more  easily.  "Are  you  digging 
in  this  place?"  Martin  asked.  Edwin  told  him  that 
he  lived  in  the  country. 


266         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"In  the  country?  I  didn't  know  there  was  any 
here.  Have  you  any  decent  shooting?" 

"Unfortunately,  no."  He  remembered,  however, 
the  solitary  trout  under  the  bridge  below  the  abbey. 
"There's  fishing  of  sorts,"  he  said. 

"What  sorts?" 

"Oh,  trout " 

"Brown  trout?  There's  not  much  fun  in  that. 
White  trout  .  .  .  sea  trout  you  call  them  in  Eng- 
land .  .  .  are  good  sport.  Still,  we'll  have  a  day 
together  next  spring.  I'll  get  my  rods  over." 

The  subject  was  dangerous,  and  so  Edwin  asked 
him  where  he  was  living:  "With  your  cousin,  I 
suppose." 

"Oh,  no.  ...  I  don't  know  the  old  divil,  you 
know.  I've  rooms  with  an  old  lady  up  in  Alvaston. 
She's  rather  a  decent  sort.  House  full  of  animals." 
He  didn't  specify  what  the  animals  were.  "I'd  bet- 
ter go  and  unpack  some  of  my  things.  I  suppose  I 
shall  see  you  at  the  Chemistry  Lecture  to-morrow. 
So  long.  .  .  .  Oh,  I  forgot.  .  .  .  What's  your 
name?" 

"Ingleby." 

"Ingleby.  .  .  .  Eight-o."  He  boarded  a  passing 
bus  with  the  air  of  stepping  on  to  a  coach  and  four. 

Edwin  took  the  next  train  home.  On  the  oppo- 
site platform  of  the  station  he  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  great  bulk  of  the  man  named  Brown  walking 
up  and  down  with  earnestness  in  his  eyes  and  under 
his  arm  a  huge  parcel  of  books.  He  gave  Edwin 
the  impression  of  wanting  to  throw  himself  into  the 
adventure  of  the  medical  curriculum  as  he  might 
have  thrown  himself  into  a  Rugby  scrum,  expecting 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  267 

a  repetition  of  the  tremendous  battering  that  he 
seemed  already  to  have  undergone. 

Thinking  of  him,  and  of  the  aristocratic  Martin, 
and  of  Harrop,  a  product  which  Oriel  had  finished 
to  the  last  waistcoat  button,  and,  more  dimly,  of  the 
elderly  gentleman  with  the  dejected  moustaches,  it 
seemed  to  Edwin  that  he  himself  was  appallingly 
young  and  callow  and  inexperienced.  'How  was  he 
going  to  stand  up  to  these  people  with  their  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  and  its  ways:  men  who  had  al- 
ready, by  virtue  of  their  birth  or  experience,  learned 
how  to  dress  and  live  and  move  without  effort  in 
the  crowded  world?  Yet  with  them,  he  knew,  he 
must  now  take  his  place.  It  would  be  difficult  .  .  . 
awfully  difficult.  He  had  everything,  even  the  most 
elementary  rules  of  conduct,  to  learn.  He  was  a 
child  who  had  never  known  another  human  being 
except  his  mother  and  a  few  school  friends  of  his 
own  age.  He  had  not  even  the  savoir-vivre  of 
Griffin.  And,  in  this  new  life,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  dreams  on  which  he  had  depended  must  be 
useless — or  even  more,  a  positive  handicap  to  his 
success. 

The  moments  of  sudden  spiritual  enlightenment 
that  one  reads  of  in  the  lives  of  saints,  or  of  con- 
verts to  Salvationism,  are  not  a  common  experience 
in  those  of  ordinary  men ;  and  though,  in  the  turn 
of  every  tide,  there  is  a  critical  period,  measurable 
by  the  fraction  of  a  second,  in  which  the  waters 
that  have  swayed  forwards  retire  upon  themselves, 
to  the  eyes  of  an  observer  the  change  of  motion  is 
so  gradual  as  to  be  only  slowly  perceived.  In  Ed- 
win's life  the  death  of  his  mother  had  been  the 


268         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

real  point  of  crisis;  but  this  he  had  only  dimly 
realised  when  his  hopes  of  Oxford  had  been  dashed 
for  ever  in  a  third-class  compartment  hurtling  un- 
der Bredon  Hill.  Between  it  and  the  present  mo- 
ment there  had  hung  a  period  of  dead  water  (so 
to  speak)  in  which  the  current  of  his  life  had 
seemed  suspended ;  but  now  he  knew  that  there  was 
no  doubt  biht  that  a  change  had  overtaken  him,  and 
that  he  would  never  again  be  the  same. 

All  his  life,  up  to  this  point,  had  been  curiously 
inorganic:  a  haphazard  succession  of  novel  and 
bewildering  sensations:  a  kaleidoscope  of  sensual 
impressions  changing  almost  too  rapidly  to  be  ap- 
preciated— so  rapidly  that  it  had  been  impossible 
for  him  to  think  of  one  in  relation  to  another.  Some 
of  them  had  been  painful ;  some  enthralling  in  their 
beauty ;  some  merely  engrossing  because  they  were 
full  of  awe:  yet  all  had  been  ecstatic,  and  tinged 
in  some  degree  with  a  visionary  light.  Now,  as 
always,  it  was  clear  that  he  must  be  a  dreamer; 
but,  from  this  day  onwards,  it  also  became  clear 
that  his  visions  must  be  something  more  to  him 
than  a  series  of  coloured  impressions,  succeeding 
one  another  without  reason  and  accepted  without 
explanation.  In  the  future  they  must  be  corre- 
lated with  experience  and  the  demands  of  life.  In 
that  lost  age  of  innocence  the  people  with  whom  he 
came  into  contact  had  interested  him  only  as  figures 
passing  through  the  scenes  that  were  spread  for 
his  delectation.  They  had  been  external  to  him. 
He  had  lived  within  himself  and  his  loneliness  had 
been  so  self-sufficient  that  it  would  have  made  no 
great  difference  to  him  if  they  had  not  been  there. 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  269 

Now  he  was  to  take  his  part  in  the  drama  at  which, 
in  times  before,  he  had  merely  sat  as  a  bemused 
spectator.  It  was  a  stirring  and  a  terrifying  pros- 
pect. 

The  train  from  North  Bromwich  stopped  at  every 
station,  and  the  whole  of  the  journey  lay  through 
the  black  desert  that  fringes  the  iron  city,  a  vast 
basin  of  imprisoned  smoke,  bounded  by  hills  that 
had  once  been  crowned  with  woods,  but  were  now 
dominated  by  the  high  smoke-stacks  of  collieries, 
many  of  them  ruined  and  deserted.  ^At  a  dirty 
junction,  so  undermined  with  workings  that  the 
bridge  and  the  brick  offices  were  distorted  in  a 
manner  which  suggested  that  the  whole  affair  might 
some  day  go  down  quick  into  the  pit,  he  changed 
into  the  local  train.  The  railway  company  evi- 
dently did  not  consider  the  passenger  traffic  of 
Halesby  worth  consideration,  for  the  carriages 
were  old  and  grimy.  Edwin  chose  a  smoker  because 
the  cushions  were  covered  with  American  leather 
and  therefore  more  obviously  clean.  He  found  him- 
self, in  the  middle  of  his  reflections,  sitting  opposite 
a  coloured  photograph  of  the  great  gorge  at  Ax- 
combe,  a  town  that  was  served  by  the  same  line. 
The  picture  carried  him  suddenly  to  another  aspect 
of  his  too  complicated  life.  Keally,  the  whole  busi- 
ness was  hopelessly  involved.  He  thought,  grimly, 
how  he  could  have  taken  the  wind  out  of  Martin's 
genealogical  sails  by  blurting  out  the  astounding  in- 
telligence that  his  uncle  was  a  gardener.  And  what 
would  the  gentleman  with  the  waistcoat  have  said? 
He  laughed  at  the  idea. 

Through  a  short  but  sulphurous  tunnel  the  train 


270         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

emerged  into  the  valley  of  the  Stour:  the  vista 
of  the  hills  unfolded,  and  later  the  spire  of  Halesby 
church  appeared  at  the  valley's  head.  Well,  a  be- 
ginning of  the  new  life  had  to  be  made  some  day, 
and  now  as  well  as  ever. 

Walking  home  along  the  cinder  pathway  beside 
the  silting  fish-ponds  it  seemed  to  him  that  in  the 
light  of  his  new  experience,  Halesby  was  a  primi- 
tive and  almost  pitiable  place,  and  the  same  mood 
held  him  when  he  made  his  way  home  by  the  short 
cut  through  Mrs.  Barrow's  cloistered  garden  and 
entered  his  father's  house.  Under  the  south  wall 
the  bed  of  double  stocks  was  still  in  flower,  though 
faded  and  bedraggled.  Their  scent  reminded  him 
of  what  a  world  of  experience  he  had  traversed  in 
less  than  three  months.  He  went  straight  up  to 
his  own  bedroom.  On  the  bed  lay  two  parcels  ad- 
dressed to  him.  The  larger  contained  his  under- 
graduate's cap  and  gown.  He  put  them  on  in  front 
of  the  glass  and  rather  fancied  himself.  The  act 
struck  him  as  in  a  way  symbolical :  it  was  the 
token  of  an  initiation.  From  that  day  forward  he 
was  a  medical  student.  For  five  or  six  years,  prob- 
ably for  the  rest  of  his  life,  he  would  spend  his  time 
in  the  presence  of  the  most  bitter  human  experi- 
ence; but  there  was  something  elevating  in  the 
thought  that  he  need  not  be  a  helpless  spectator: 
he  would  be  able  to  effect  positive  good  in  a  way 
that  no  scholar  and  no  preacher  of  religion  or  ab- 
Btract  morality  could  possibly  attain.  "This  is  my 
life,"  he  thought.  Well,  it  was  good  to  know  any- 
thing as  definite  as  that. 

The  second  parcel  contained  a  number  of  tech- 


THE  CITY  OF  IRON  271 

nical  books  dealing  with  the  subjects  of  his  first 
year's  curriculum:  Chemistry,  Physics,  Biology, 
Physiology,  and  Anatomy.  The  last  appeared  to 
be  the  most  exciting.  "Fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made  .  .  ."  he  thought.  He  set  to  work  at  once 
preparing  the  little  room  for  work,  making  it  as 
comfortable  as  he  could  with  a  writing  table  in  the 
window  that  looked  out  over  Shenstone's  woods 
and  dethroning  the  superannuated  Henty  and  Fenn 
from  the  bookshelf.  He  could  not  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  treat  his  poets  so  cavalierly,  and  so  there 
they  stayed.  Greek  and  Latin  and  English.  "I 
shall  never  drop  my  classics,"  he  thought.  A  reso- 
lution that  has  been  forgotten  nearly  as  often  as  it 
has  been  made.  In  the  Blenheim  orange-tree  at 
the  bottom  of  the  garden  a  thrush  was  singing. 
Bullfinches  were  fighting  shrilly  in  the  raspberry 
canes.  He  threw  open  the  window,  and  there 
ascended  to  him  the  heavy,  faded  perfume  of  the 
bed  of  stocks.  On  the  mantelpiece  stood  a  photo- 
graph of  his  mother.  Looking  at  it,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  she  smiled. 


CHAPTER  II 

MORTALITY   BEHOLD   . 


HE  was  happy :  even  Halesby  became  a  grateful 
place  of  retirement  after  his  long  days  in 
North  Bromwich.  The  mornings  of  early  autumn 
were  very  beautiful,  and  it  was  with  a  good  deal 
of  zest  that  he  would  scramble  through  his  break- 
fast and  leave  the  house  early  to  catch  the  eight 
o'clock  train.  He  usually  made  use  of  the  short  cut 
through  Mrs.  Barrow's  garden  and  the  cinder  path 
beside  the  fish-ponds,  and  in  this  brisk  walk,  with 
the  blood  of  youth  running  happily  in  his  veins, 
he  would  catch  a  little  of  the  exhilarating  atmos- 
phere of  early  morning  in  the  country.  When  the 
frosts  began,  as  they  do  early  on  that  high  plateau, 
the  morning  air  seemed  stronger  and  more  bracing 
than  ever. 

Circumstance,  in  a  little  more  than  three 
months,  had  exalted  him  to  the  state  of  those  metro- 
politan season-ticket  holders  whose  majesty  he  had 
disturbed  on  the  day  when  he  left  St.  Luke's  for 
good.  He  was  now  in  a  position  to  appreciate  their 
exclusiveness,  and  to  look  upon  all  chance  people 
who  intruded  on  the  privacies  of  the  eight  o'clock 
train  with  the  same  mingled  curiosity  and  con- 

272 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        273 

tempt.  In  every  way  a  season  ticket,  in  its  cover 
of  dark  blue  morocco,  was  a  thing  superior  to  the 
transitory  and  ignoble  pasteboard.  He  could  hardly 
resist  a  sigh  of  bored  superiority  on  the  first  oc- 
casion when  he  produced  it.  He  travelled  second- 
class,  thus  rising  to  the  highest  level  of  luxury  in 
travelling  permitted  to  any  inhabitants  of  Halesby, 
unless  it  were  the  local  baronet  or  Mr.  Willis  of 
Mawne,  whom  even  Sir  Joseph  Kingston  could  not 
outdo. 

Most  of  the  other  season-ticket  holders  travelled 
second;  and  in  this  way,  by  making  a  habit  of 
taking  his  place  in  the  same  carriage,  for  senti- 
mental reasons  one  that  contained  a  series  of  west- 
country  pictures,  Edwin  began  to  be  on  speaking 
terms  with  many  members  of  this  select  company. 
They  included  a  youth  articled  to  a  solicitor  in 
North  Bromwich,  the  son  of  a  Halesby  postmaster, 
who  was  inclined  to  establish  terms  of  familiarity ; 
a  gentleman  with  a  bloated  complexion  and  a  fawn- 
coloured  bowler  hat,  reputed  to  be  a  commercial 
traveller,  who  carried  a  bag  in  which  samples  may 
well  have  been  hidden;  a  superior  person  with  a 
gruff  voice  who  was  a  clerk  in  a  bank  in  the  city, 
and  on  Saturdays  carried  a  brown  canvas  bag  and 
a  hockey  stick;  and  a  withered  man  of  fifty  who 
travelled  into  North  Bromwich  daily  on  some  busi- 
ness connected  with  brass,  and,  on  damp  mornings, 
exhibited  evidences  of  an  asthmatic  complaint  that 
aroused  Edwin's  budding  professional  interest. 

It  was  he  who  first  admitted  Edwin  to  the  con- 
versation of  the  compartment,  by  confessing  to  him 
that  he  had  been  the  despair  of  doctors  since  child- 


274         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

hood :  that  three  specialists  had  assured  his  mother 
that  she  would  never  rear  that  boy :  that  in  spite  of 
this  he  had  always  paid  four  times  as  much  in  doc- 
tor's bills  as  in  income-tax,  that  in  his  belief  they 
only  kept  him  alive  for  what  they  could  get  out  of 
him,  and  that  his  life  had  been  an  unending  misery, 
as  harrowing,  upon  his  word,  as  that  of  any  of  the 
sufferers  who  were  illustrated  in  the  papers  hold- 
ing their  backs  with  kidney  complaint,  until  his 
missus  had  said:  "Don't  throw  any  more  money 
away  on  these  doctors,  John,  I'll  have  a  talk  with 
Mr.  Ingleby,"  .  .  .  and  with  the  aid  of  Ingleby's 
Asthma  Cure  he  had  become  relatively  whole.  Evi- 
dently he  knew  who  Edwin  was.  "What  do  you 
think  of  that  now?"  he  wheezed,  and  covered  the 
embarrassment  into  which  Edwin  was  immediately 
thrown  by  not  waiting  for  his  reply  and  continuing : 
"I  suppose,  now,  you'll  be  learning  to  be  a  chemist 
like  your  father?" 

"No  .  .  .  I'm  a  medical  student.  I'm  going  to 
be  a  doctor." 

"Well  .  .  .  I'll  be  damned,"  said  the  asthmatical 
person.  He  did  not  say  why;  but  the  looks  of  the 
superior  bank  clerk,  who  immediately  lowered  his1 
paper  and  stared  at  Edwin  as  though  it  were  his 
duty  to  decide  whether  Edwin  were  a  fit  person  to 
enter  a  learned  profession  or  not,  and  then  con- 
temptuously went  on  with  his  reading,  supplied 
the  kind  of  commentary  that  might  have  been  in- 
tended. When  the  asthmatical  subject  said  that 
he  was  damned,  the  gentleman  with  the  bloated 
complexion  and  the  fawn-coloured  bowler,  who  al- 
ways opened  his  morning  paper  with  fingers  that 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        275 

trembled,  either  with  excitement  or  as  a  result  of 
the  night  before,  at  the  column  headed  Turf  Topics, 
gave  a  snigger  and  spat  on  the  floor  to  conceal  it. 
And  the  articled  clerk,  at  this  display  of  ill  breed- 
ing, turned  up  his  nose. 

It  was  a  strange  little  company  that  assembled 
in  the  second-class  smoker  every  morning;  and  the 
strangest  part  of  it,  to  Edwin,  was  the  fact  that 
each  of  them,  entrenched,  as  it  were,  behind  his 
morning  paper,  affected  a  frigid  disinterest,  yet 
eagerly  listened  to  the  conversation  and  eagerly 
scrutinised  the  appearance  of  the  others.  All  of 
them  had  their  little  fixed  habits.  In  one  place 
they  put  their  gloves:  in  another  their  umbrellas. 
Every  morning  they  began  to  read  their  papers  at 
the  same  column  and  folded  them  at  the  same  point 
in  the  journey.  They  seemed  just  as  regular  in 
their  habits  as  the  wheels  of  the  carriage  in  which 
they  travelled,  revolving  and  stopping  and  shunt- 
ing and  being  braked  at  an  identical  time  and  place 
for  six  days  out  of  the  seven. 

When  he  had  tumbled  to  this,  Edwin  found  that 
the  whole  of  the  main  line  train  that  he  caught 
every  morning  at  the  junction  was  occupied  by  per- 
haps a  hundred  grouped  units  of  the  same  kind.  It 
amused  him  to  sample  them;  and  when  one  ap- 
pealed to  him  he  would  become  a  member  of  it  for 
a  time  and  see  what  he  could  make  of  it.  Naturally 
there  were  more  interesting  people  on  the  main 
line  than  on  the  Halesby  branch ;  and  in  the  end  he 
himself  became  such  a  familiar  figure  on  the  eight- 
twenty  from  the  junction  that  he  could  say  "Good- 
morning"  to  nearly  every  group  of  seasons  on  the 


276         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

train.  He  was  even  taken  to  the  heart  of  the  su- 
perior gruff-voiced  bank  clerk  in  the  Halesby  car- 
riage. Indeed,  he  knew  every  one  of  them,  finding 
them  human  people  who,  in  the  manner  of  the  Eng- 
lishman and  the  hedgehog,  had  put  out  their  pro- 
tective spikes  upon  a  first  acquaintance. 

The  only  Halesby  traveller  of  whom  he  could 
make  nothing  was  the  bloated  person  in  the  fawn- 
coloured  bowler,  who  began  the  morning  with  turf 
topics  and  then  proceeded  to  suck  a  copying  pencil 
till  his  lips  were  the  colour  of  his  cheeks,  and,  thus 
inspired,  to  underline  the  names  of  a  number  of 
horses  in  the  day's  programme.  Apart  from  his 
habit  of  spitting  on  the  floor,  a  custom  which  prob- 
ably saved  the  poor  man  from  death  by  poisoning 
with  copying  ink,  he  was  inoffensive.  Edwin  was 
even  sorry  for  him  sometimes  when  he  saw  him 
hung  up  over  his  forecasts.  Then  he  would  tilt  the 
fawn-coloured  bowler  on  to  the.  back  of  his  head, 
and  scratch  his  head  under  the  sandy  fringe  of 
hair.  Edwin  was  sorry  because,  with  a  head  like 
that,  it  must  have  been  so  difficult  to  forecast  any- 
thing. 

He  did  not  see  many  women  on  the  morning 
train.  In  those  days  female  enterprise  was  a  good 
deal  checked  by  conventions  that  died  more  slowly 
in  the  Midland  plain  than  elsewhere.  From 
Halesby  itself  there  were  only  four  season-ticket 
holders  of  the  opposite  sex.  Two  of  them  were  em- 
ployed in  the  same  large  drapery  establishment  in 
Queen  Street,  and  were  excessively  ladylike  and 
careful  in  all  their  behaviour.  Edwin  had  never 
spoke  to  either  of  them ;  but  he  discovered  in  both 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  .  .  ,        277 

an  identical  physical  state:  that  peculiar  greenish, 
waxen  pallor  that  appears  to  be  the  inevitable  re- 
sult of  serving  in  a  draper's  shop.  The  black  dresses 
on  which  their  employers  insisted,  heightened  this 
effect  of  fragility,  and  on  mornings  when  tiredness 
had  made  them  start  too  late  for  the  train,  so  that 
they  had  to  hurry  over  the  last  hundred  yards,  Ed- 
win would  notice  how  they  panted  for  breath  within 
their  elegant  corsets  and  how  faint  was  the  flush 
that  came  into  their  cheeks. 

He  felt  a  little  sorry  for  them ;  but  they  were  not 
in  the  least  sorry  for  themselves.  In  Halesby  their 
employment  at  a  monstrous  third-rate  drapery  store 
gave  them  a  position  of  unusual  distinction  as 
arbiters  of  feminine  fashions,  and  they  would  not 
have  exchanged  their  distinguished  anaemia  for  any 
other  calling  under  the  sun.  In  their  profession 
this  toxic  pallor,  as  of  sea-kale  blanched  in  a  cellar, 
was  regarded  as  an  asset.  It  was  considered 
French.  And  did  not  their  shortness  of  breath, 
upon  the  least  exertion  or  emotion,  cause  their 
bosoms  to  rise  and  fall  like  those  of  the  heroines 
of  the  serial  fiction  that  they  read,  when  they  were 
not  too  tired,  in  the  train? 

Edwin  was  not  attracted  by  them  any  more  than 
by  the  other  couple :  a  pair  of  pupil  teachers  from 
an  elementary  school  in  one  of  the  northern 
suburbs,  who  also  dressed  for  the  part  that  they 
were  fulfilling  in  life,  and  wore  spectacles  as  tokens 
of  their  studiousness.  The  instinct  of  sex  had  as 
yet  scarcely  asserted  itself  in  him.  He  was  a  little 
curious  about  it,  and  that  was  all.  Subconsciously, 
perhaps,  it  found  expression  in  his  anxieties  about 


278         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Ms  personal  appearance.  He  was  beginning  to  take 
a  considerable  interest  in  what  should  or  should 
not  be  worn,  treating  it  more  as  a  matter  of  abstract 
science  than  as  one  of  practical  politics;  for  he 
had  few  clothes  beyond  those  in  which  he  had  left 
St.  Luke's,  and  was  not  likely  to  have  any  oppor- 
tunity of  extending  his  wardrobe  until  these  were 
worn  out.  In  those  days  the  weekly  called  To-Day 
had  reached  its  most  vigorous  phase,  and  a  column 
headed  Masculine  Modes  was  a  matter  of  earnest 
consideration  to  Edwin  every  Thursday,  when  the 
paper  appeared.  In  the  spring,  he  decided,  he 
would  buy  an  overcoat  with  Eaglan  sleeves.  The 
weekly  authority,  who  styled  himself  "The  Major," 
was  dead  nuts  on  Kaglan  sleeves.  Beneath  this 
fashionable  covering  Edwin's  interior  defects 
would  be  well  hidden,  and,  given  a  natty  red  tie 
(de  rigueur,  said  the  Major,  with  the  indispensable 
blue  serge  reefer  suit)  and  a  bowler  hat  with  a 
curly,  but  not  too  curly,  brim,  he  should  be  able  to 
compete  with  the  burly  bank  clerk  as  cynosure  for 
the  eyes  of  the  pale  young  ladies  in  the  "drapery" 
and  a  spectacle  of  awe  for  the  studious  pupil- 
teachers. 


Edwin  soon  became  absorbed  in  the  routine  of 
the  first  year  student's  life,  and  had  very  little  time 
to  think  about  anything  else./  He  had  to  work  hard 
to  keep  pace  with  it,  and  the  realisation  of  this  was 
a  striking  lesson  to  him.  At  St.  Luke's  he  had 
found  that  his  advance  in  knowledge  made  the  work 
progressively  more  easy.  Here  he  was  breaking 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        279 

new  ground  from  the  beginning,  acquiring  knowl- 
edge of  a  kind  that  owed  nothing  to  general  culture 
and  came  to  him  none  the  easier  for  his  possession 
of  it.  The  only  things  in  his  new  work  that  seemed 
easy  and  logical  to  him  were  those  scientific  names 
that  were  derived  from  Latin  and  .Greek.  Other- 
wise the  very  rudiments  and  nature  of  the  subjects 
were  new  to  him. 

The  most  astonishing  part  of  the  whole  business 
was  the  way  in  which  the  formidable  assembly  that 
had  glared  at  him,  as  he  imagined,  outside  the 
Dean's  office,  simplified  itself.  He  had  been  pre- 
pared to  find  them  creatures  of  a  different  tissue 
from  himself,  and  particularly  such  apparitions  as 
Harrop  and  the  immense  Brown.  He  soon  saw  that 
as  far  as  the  career  of  Medicine  was  concerned  they 
were  identically  in  the  same  box  as  himself:  that 
neither  knowledge  of  the  world  nor  elegance  of  at- 
tire could  help  either  of  them  to  acquire  the  abso- 
lute knowledge  that  was  the  one  thing  essential  to 
success.  It  made  no  matter  that  these  two  ap- 
proached the  same  problem  from  essentially  dif- 
ferent angles:  Brown  with  his  earnest  brows 
knitted  and  a  look  of  indomitable  but  baffled  de- 
termination; Harrop  as  though  the  issue  didn't 
really  matter  as  long  as  the  crease  in  his  trousers 
was  in  the  right  place;  but  in  either  case  Edwin 
saw  that  they  had  to  work  as  hard  or  harder  than 
he  did. 

His  first  acquaintance,  Martin,  who  was  now  be- 
coming his  friend,  since  the  work  that  they  shared 
in  common  bridged  the  social  gulf  of  which  Edwin 
alone  was  aware,  seemed  to  possess  the  faculty  of 


280         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

doing  things  and  learning  facts  almost  in  spite  of 
himself.  He  was  not  in  any  way  brilliant,  but  he 
had  a  way  with  him  and  a  certain  shrewdness  that 
not  infrequently  underlies  the  superficial  indolence 
of  the  Celt.  Above  all  things  Edwin  found  him 
good  company,  for  the  picturesqueness  of  his  brogue 
and  a  sense  of  humour,  not  of  the  verbal  kind  in 
which  Edwin  himself  dealt,  but  the  broader  humour 
that  arises  from  situations,  and  personal  charac- 
teristics, made  his  society  a  peculiar  joy.  At  the 
first  lecture  on  Chemistry,  a  dull  dissertation  on 
first  principles,  Edwin  had  gravitated  to  the  seat 
next  to  him,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  term  they  kept 
the  same  places  and  afterwards  compared  notes. 
Edwin  couldn't  help  liking  him,  even  though  he 
was  conscious  of  the  radical  social  misunderstand- 
ing that  underlay  their  friendship. 

The  technical  sciences  of  Chemistry  and  Physics 
made  no  strong  appeal  to  Edwin.  They  seemed  to 
him  matters  of  empirical  knowledge  that  must  be 
acquired  according  to  schedule  but  would  have  very 
little  connection  with  the  work  of  his  profession, 
and  he  found  them  too  near  to  the  desperate  sub- 
ject of  mathematics  to  be  congenial.  He  could  find 
nothing  romantic  or  human  in  them ;  and  this  fact, 
in  itself,  is  a  sufficient  indictment  of  the  way  in 
which  they  were  taught. 

Anatomy  was  another  matter  altogether.  He  had 
anticipated  the  beginning  of  this  study  with  a  feel- 
ing in  which  awe  and  an  instinctive  distaste  were 
mingled.  From  the  first  day  he  had  known  that 
somewhere  up  at  the  top  of  the  building  lay  the  dis- 
secting room,  a  place  that  his  fancy  painted  as  a 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        281 

kind  of  Chamber  of  Horrors.  On  his  way  to  the 
theatre,  in  which  the  Dean  lectured  on  Anatomy 
with  a  scholarly  refinement  of  phrase  that  trans- 
cended the  natural  elegance  of  Martin  and  a  fasci- 
nating collection  of  coloured  chalks,  he  had  passed 
the  gloomy  door  and  seen  a  blackboard  on  which  the 
names  of  the  Prosectors  were  recorded  in  white  let- 
tering. But  he  preferred  not  to  look  inside.  Mar- 
tin, to  whom  all  adventures  came  more  easily, 
settled  the  point  for  him. 

"I  say,"  he  said  immediately  after  the  lecture, 
"have  you  put  yourself  down  for  a  part?" 

"A  part?    What  do  you  mean?" 

"Anatomy.  Dissecting.  They're  shared  between 
two,  you  know.  In  the  first  term  we're  supposed 
to  do  an  Upper  or  a  Lower.  Suppose  we  go  shares 
in  one " 

"All  right,"  said  Edwin.    "Which  shall  it  be?" 

"Well,  I  think  an  Upper  will  be  better.  There's 
less  fat  and  mess  about  it.  We'd  better  go  and 
choose  one  now." 

"All  right." 

"Come  along,  then."  Martin  opened  the  door  of 
the  dissecting  room  and  held  it  while  Edwin 
entered.  It  was  a  long,  irregular  chamber,  with  a 
low  glass  roof  and  an  asphalt  floor.  Edwin's  first 
impression  was  one  of  light  and  space :  the  second, 
of  a  penetrating  odour  unlike  anything  that  he  had 
smelt  before.  He  could  not  give  a  name  to  it,  and 
indeed  it  was  complex,  being  compact  of  a  pungent, 
unknown  antiseptic  and  another  fainter  smell  that 
was,  in  fact,  that  of  ancient  mortality.  The  effect 
of  the  whole  was  strange  but  not  nauseating  as 


282         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

he  would  have  expected.  All  down  the  room  at 
short  intervals  long  zinc  tables,  with  a  tin  bucket 
at  the  head  of  each,  were  ranged.  Most  of  the 
tables  were  empty;  but  on  four  or  five  of  them 
"subjects"  were  either  displayed  or  lay  draped  in 
coarse,  unbleached  calico.  One  or  two  of  them 
sprawled  on  their  faces,  but  most  of  them,  being 
as  yet  unappropriated,  were  supported  under  their 
backs  by  small  metal  platforms  from  which  the 
heads  rolled  back  and  the  limbs  were  stretched  out 
in  a  posture  of  extreme  but  petrified  agony.  To 
Edwin's  eyes  it  was  a  lamentable  and  terrible 
sight.  He  wondered  by  what  chain  of  degradations 
the  body  of  a  man  who  had  lived  and  known  the 
youth  and  pride  of  body  that  he  himself  possessed, 
who  had  experienced  aspirations  and  dreams  and 
hope  and  love,  should  descend  to  this  final  in- 
dignity. He  stood  still.  He  did  not  dare,  for  the 
moment,  to  come  nearer. 

"How  do  they  get  here?"  he  asked  Martin. 

"Oh,  they're  paupers,  you  know.  Old  men  and 
women,  most  of  them,  who  die  in  the  workhouses 
and  are  not  claimed  by  their  relatives.  Instead  of 
burying  them  they  send  them  along  here.  The 
anatomy  porters  collect  them.  Then  they're  pickled 
for  feo  long  in  a  kind  of  vat  in  the  cellars  of  this 
place,  and  they  inject  them  with  arsenic  to  preserve 
them,  and  pump  red  paint  into  their  arteries  so 
that  they're  easier  to  dissect.  I  shouldn't  like  the 
job  myself}  but  I  suppose  the  porters  are  used  to 
it.  You  get  used  to  anything,  you  know.  Besides, 
they  aren't  a  bit  like  they  are  when  they're  first 
dead.  I  think  that's  the  chap  for  us.  I  had  a  look 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  .  .  ,        283 

at  him  the  other  day.  It's  always  better  to  choose 
an  old  one.  The  muscles  are  cleaner.  Less  work." 

They  approached  the  second  table.  The  subject 
was  an  old  and  withered  man:  his  grey  hair  was 
shaven,  and  his  mouth  hung  open,  showing  that 
he  had  lost  his  teeth.  Martin  had  been  quite  right. 
He  didn't  look  in  the  least  like  a  dead  man.  He 
did  not  look  like  a  man  at  all:  only  a  pathetic, 
tanned  skeleton  with  tight-drawn  sinews  and 
toughened  skin:  a  dried  mummy,  from  which  all 
the  contours  of  humanity  had  shrunk  away.  It 
wasn't  so  bad  after  all.  The  picture  that  Edwin's 
imagination  had  anticipated,  that  of  a  crude  and 
horrible  human  shambles,  was  not  here.  No  .  .  . 
the  idea  of  humanity  was  too  remote  to  be  in  the 
least  insistent.  For  a  moment,  in  spite  of  this  con- 
solation, Edwin  went  pale.  Martin  noticed  it. 

"I  say,  this  isn't  going  to  turn  you  up,  is  it?" 

"No.  .  .  .  I'm  all  right.  I  was  only  .  .  .  think- 
ing." 

"Thinking?"  said  Martin,  with  a  laugh.  "I 
shouldn't  do  too  much  of  that  if  I  were  you.  We'd 
better  make  a  start  to-morrow  on  the  right  Upper. 
I'll  put  our  names  down." 

He  turned  towards  the  glass  case  in  which  hung 
notices  of  lectures  and  the  printed  cards  on  which 
the  names  of  dissectors  were  recorded,  and  while 
he  did  so  Edwin  still  stood  thinking.  He  thought: 
Was  this  really  a  man  who  had  lived  and  breathed 
and  aged  and  suffered?  Where  had  he  been  born? 
How  long  ago?  Had  he  ever  loved?  Had  he  ever 
married?  Had  he  ever  wondered  what  the  future 
would  bring  to  him?  surely  his  fancies  had  never 


284         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

envisaged  this.  Perhaps  he  had  been  born  in  some 
remote  hamlet  of  the  marches,  some  sweet  smelling 
village  like  Far  Forest,  from  which  the  iron 
tentacles  of  the  city  had  drawn  him  inwards  and 
sapped  his  life,  leaving,  in  the  end,  this  dry  shell, 
like  the  sucked  carcass  of  a  fly  blowing  in  a  spider's 
web.  If  this  were  the  end  of  poverty  and  desola- 
tion, what  a  terrible  thing  poverty  must  be.  Did 
the  poor  and  the  outcast  ever  dream  that  they 
might  come  to  this?  And  yet,  after  all,  what  did 
it  matter?  .  .  . 

He  awoke  from  his  dream.  It  was  evident  that 
lie  was  the  only  dreamer  in  that  long  room.  At 
many  of  the  other  tables  second  year  men  were 
sitting  quietly  dissecting  or  gossiping  or  thumbing 
manuals  of  practical  anatomy  yellow  with  human 
grease.  It  amazed  him  that  men  should  be  able 
to  joke  and  smoke  their  pipes  and  appear  to  be  con- 
tented in  such  an  atmosphere;  but  the  wisdom  of 
Martin's  phrase  returned  to  him.:  "You  get  used  to 
anything,  you  know." 

Among  the  dissectors  already  at  work  in  their 
white  overalls,  he  saw  the  ponderous  frame  of  the 
man  called  Brown.  He,  at  any  rate,  was  not  letting 
the  grass  grow  under  his  feet.  Already  he  was  en- 
gaged in  reflecting  the  skin  from  the  "Lower"  on 
which  he  was  working.  His  clumsy  hands  found 
the  work  difficult,  as  was  shown  by  the  anxiety  of 
his  partner,  an  immaculate  smooth  young  man, 
whom  Edwin  already  knew  by  the  name  of  Maskew, 
dressed  in  the  Major's  indispensable  navy  serge 
reefer,  with  the  correct  red  tie  and  a  big  orchid  in 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        285 

his  buttonhole.    He  took  an  elaborate  meerschaum 
pipe  out  of  his  mouth  to  protest : — 

"Good  Lord,  Brown,  there's  another  cutaneous 
nerve  gone  phut.  Do  be  careful !" 

And  Brown,  with  an  exaggerated  earnestness: — 

"I  say,  old  man,  I  am  sorry.  I  simply  can't  use 
the  damned  things.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that's  a 
nerve?"  He  held  up  in  his  forceps  a  tiny  white  fila- 
ment of  tissue. 

"Yes,"  said  Maskew,  returning  to  his  pipe. 
"Branch  of  the  great  gluteal.  Listen  to  what  Cun- 
ningham* says :  'The  buttock  is  liberally  supplied 
with  cutaneous  nerves :  a  fact  much  appreciated  by 
schoolboys.' " 

Brown  scratched  his  head  with  the  handle  of  his 
scalpel.  "Well,  I'm  in  an  absolute  fog.  You'd  bet- 
ter take  this  job  on  to-morrow,  and  I'll  do  the  read- 
ing. What  does  'cutaneous'  mean,  anyway?" 

"Cutis,"  thought  Edwin,  "Skin."  After  all,  it 
seemed,  the  dead  languages  had  their  uses.  By  this 
time  he  had  recovered  from  the  first  shock  of  his 
distaste;  he  was  getting  used  to  the  odour  of  the 
room,  and  so,  ji  moment  later,  he  and  Martin 
strolled  over  to  a  table  at  which  one  of  the  prosec- 
tors was  engaged  in  preparing  a  specimen  for  the 
Dean's  lectures.  It  was  almost  pleasant  to  watch 
the  deftness  with  which  he  defined  the  line  of  a 
pink,  injected  artery,  wielding  his  scalpel  as  deli- 
cately and  as  surely  as  a  painter  at  work  on  a  can- 
vas. They  watched  .him  working  in  silence.  "Mce 
part,  isn't  it?"  he  said  with  condescension. 

"Yes,"  said  Martin,  "this  sort  of  thing  must  be 
rattling  good  practice  for  surgery." 


286         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Oh,  surgery's  quite  different,"  said  the  prosector. 
"This  is  a  lazy  job.  There's  no  hurry  about  it.  This 
fellow  won't  bleed  to  death." 

So  Edwin  and  Denis  Martin  began  to  work  on 
their  Upper,  and  the  dissecting  room  that  had  been 
an  abode  of  horror  and  an  incentive  to  philosophy 
became  no  more  than  the  scene  of  their  daily 
labours.  Edwin  accepted  his  new  callousness  with- 
out regret  for  the  sensitive  perceptions  that  he  had 
lost,  for  he  saw  that  his  heart  and  his  imagination 
were  not  really  less  tender  for  the  change;  they 
had  merely  come  to  a  working  agreement  with  the 
demands  of  his  new  life,  and  had  attained  this  satis- 
factory state  not  so  much  by  a  suppression  of 
sensibility  as  by  an  insistence  on  the  objective  as- 
pects of  his  work. 

This  fact  explained  to  him,  at  the  very  beginning 
of  his  career,  the  fallacy  of  medical  callousness  in 
relation  to  pain  or  physical  distress.  He  saw,  on 
reflection,  that  if  a  doctor  exaggerated  the  impor- 
tance of  subjective  sensations  in  his  patient  he 
might  well  lose  sight  of  his  own  object,  which  was 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  removing  their  cause : 
that,  for  example,  the  fear  of  death,  the  anxiety  of 
relatives  and  the  patient's  own  perception  of  in- 
tolerable pain,  were  of  infinitely  less  importance 
to  the  physician  than  the  presence  of  a  focus  of 
danger  in  the  patient's  appendix.  A  sustained  ob- 
jectivity was  the  only  attitude  of  mind  in  which  a 
doctor  could  live  at  the  same  time  happily  and  effi- 
ciently. 

The  only  feature  of  the  dissecting  room  that  now 
seemed  objectionable  was  the  smell  of  the  powerful 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        287 

antiseptic  that  was  used  for  preserving  the  subjects. 
For  a  week  or  two  Edwin  was  conscious  of  its  per- 
vading every  moment  of  his  life,  his  train-journeys, 
his  meal-times,  even  his  sleep.  But  in  a  little  time 
his  olfactory  nerves  became  so  used  to  it  that  they 
discounted  its  presence,  and  the  fact  that  his 
neighbours  in  railway  carriages  did  not  seem  to 
shrink  from  him,  convinced  him  that  after  all  he 
did  not  go  about  the  world  saturated  in  odours  of 
the  charnel  house. 

The  winter  term  went  on,  and  to  the  sense  of 
hurry  and  frustration  that  had  embarrassed  him 
at  first  and  found  its  perfect  expression  in  the 
knitted  brows  of  the  monstrous  Brown,  succeeded 
an  atmosphere  of  leisure  and  method  and  ease. 
Edwin  had  time  for  other  things  than  work.  He 
began  to  know  the  men  of  his  year,  and  to  discover 
that  even  the  most  formidable  of  them  weren't  half 
as  formidable  as  they  had  seemed.  Harrop,  in- 
deed, wras  still  a  little  remote.  After  the  spacious- 
ness of  Oriel,  where  he  had  devoted  a  couple  of 
years  to  a  liberal  education  in  which  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge  was  of  less  importance  than  the 
acquisition  of  style,  North  Bromwich,  with  its  con- 
centration on  the  virtues  rather  than  the  graces  of 
life  and  the  very  questionable  sartorial  shapes  that 
inhabited  it,  naturally  seemed  a  little  cheap;  but 
in  a  little  time  even  Harrop  became  modified  and 
humble  if  a  little  contemptuous,  and  the  most  re- 
splendent of  his  waistcoats  retained  no  more 
significance  than  the  oriflamme  of  a  lost  cause. 

Brown  was  the  more  approachable  of  the  two, 
and  for  Brown,  Edwin  soon  conceived  something 


288         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

that  was  very  nearly  an  affection.  With  his  impres- 
sive physique  and  his  experience  of  a  rough  world 
in  which  Edwin  had  never  moved,  was  mingled  a 
childlike  enthusiasm  for  his  new  work,  a  rich, 
blundering  good  humour,  and  great  generosity.  He 
was  not  clever,  and  showed  an  intense  admiration 
for  better  heads  than  his  own;  but  for  all  that  he 
was  much  more  intelligent  than  he  looked,  and  to 
Edwin  his  enthusiasm  and  earnestness  were  worth 
a  good  deal  more  than  his  intellectual  attainments. 

Once  or  twice,  wandering  into  the  Anatomical 
Museum,  he  had  come  upon  Brown  standing  rapt 
in  front  of  a  specimen  dissection  or  quietly  sweat- 
ing up  bones  with  a  Gray's  Anatomy  open  before 
him,  and  he  had  sung  out  to  Edwin  as  if  he  were 
an  old  friend  of  his  own  age  and  they  had  put  in 
an  hour  of  work  together.  "You  know,  you're  a 
lot  quicker  than  I  am,"  said  Brown.  "I  suppose  it 
comes  of  being  decently  educated.  I  expect  that 
when  you  were  learning  Latin  and  Greek  I  was 
knocking  about  the  world  making  a  damn  fool  of 
myself."  Then  they  would  light  their  pipes  (the 
dissecting  room  had  made  smoking  necessary  to 
Edwin)  and  Brown  would  yarn  on  for  half  an  hour 
about  his  romantic  adventures,  his  bitter  quarrels 
with  his  people,  the  adventures  that  had  befallen 
him  in  Paris  when  he  went  there  to  play  football 
for  the  Midlands,  in  all  of  which  the  passionate, 
headstrong,  obstinate  and  withal  lovable  nature  of 
the  big  fellow  would  appear. 

"I  expect  it  all  sounds  to  you  like  a  rotten  waste 
of  time,  mucking  about  with  my  life  like  this,"  he 
said.  "But  you  know  I'm  not  at  all  sorry  I've  had 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        289 

it.  ...  I  didn't  take  up  this  doctoring  business  in 
a  hurry,  without  thinking  about  it.  I  thrashed  the 
matter  out ;  and  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  doc- 
toring's  a  good  human  sort  of  game:  it's  a  sort  of 
chance  of  pulling  people  out  of  the  rotten  messes 
of  one  kind  or  another  that  they  get  themselves  into 
— through  no  fault  of  their  own,  poor  devils,  just 
because  they're  made  like  you  and  me  and  the  rest 
of  us.  If  you  go  on  the  bust,  or  knock  about  the 
country  with  a  football  team  on  tour,  or  go  on  the 
tramp  and  sleep  in  a  hedge  or  a  barn  or  a  Rowton 
House,  as  I  did  when  I  had  the  last  flare-up  with 
the  old  man,  you  rub  against  a  lot  of  people.  They're 
all  just  the  same  as  yourself,  you  know.  You  can 
see  yourself  in  the  best  of  them  as  well  as  the  worst ; 
and,  taking  them  all  round,  they're  all  damned  good 
at  the  bottom.  They've  all  got  to  fight  out  their 
own  way  in  life  with  their  heads  or  their  fists  or 
their  feet.  And  the  only  chap  that  can  really  help 
them  in  it  is  a  doctor.  That's  the  conclusion  I've 
come  to.  God!  .  .  .  you'll  scarcely  believe  it,  but 
once  I  was  converted.  I  know  it's  damn  funny ;  but 
it's  a  fact  that  when  I  was  a  youngster  and  had 
been  on  the  periodical  bust  a  revivalist  chap  got 
hold  of  me  and  persuaded  me  that  I  was  saved.  It's 
a  funny  sort  of  feeling,  I  can  tell  you.  I  thought 
I  was  going  off  my  nut  until  I  went  to  see  a  doctor 
and  he  put  my  liver  right.  It's  a  fine  humane  game, 
Ingleby.  You  can  take  it  from  me.  .  .  .  But  I  can 
tell  you,  with  one  thing  and  another,  I've  got  my 
work  cut  out." 

He  shook  his  head  seriously,  and  the  puzzled, 
dogged  expression  of  frustrate  determination  that 


290         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Edwin  knew  so  well  came  into  his  eyes.  ''We're 
wasting  time,  my  son,"  he  said.  "Let's  get  on  with 
the  blasted  humerus.  Now,  what  is  the  origin  of 
the  Supinator  Longus?  Come  on  .  .  ." 

On  one  of  these  pleasant  occasions  he  confided 
to  Edwin  the  reason  why  he  had  his  work  cut  out. 
His  father,  a  stern  Calvanistic  Methodist,  had 
finally  washed  his  hands  of  him.  "I've  been  a  bit  of 
a  rolling  stone,  you  see,"  said  Brown,  "and  you 
can't  blame  the  poor  old  fellow.  So  he  just  planked 
down  six  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  one  day  and 
told  me  that  I  could  do  what  I  liked  with  it,  but 
that  was  the  last  I  should  get  from  him.  It  suited 
me  down  to  the  ground.  I  didn't  much  care  what 
became  of  me  then.  It  was  a  couple  of  years  ago. 
So  I  had  a  royal  bust  ...  a  sort  of  glorious  wind- 
up  to  the  season  .  .  .  and  then  sat  down  to  think. 
I  had  just  five  hundred  left,  and  so  I  had  to  think 
what  the  devil  I  was  going  to  do  with  it,  and  my 
prospects  seemed  so  putridly  rotten  that  the  only 
thing  I  could  do  was  to  go  on  the  bust  again.  I 
didn't  enjoy  it  much  that  time.  Jaded  palate, 
you  know.  .  .  .  But  I  had  a  bit  of  luck.  I  met  a 
trainer  fellow  in  the  Leicester  lounge  with  a  couple 
of  women,  and  he  put  me  on  to  a  double  for  the 
Lincoln  and  National.  I've  no  use  for  horse-racing. 
If  it  was  the  owners  that  were  racing  there'd  be  a 
vestige  of  sport  in  it;  but  it  always  seems  to  me  a 
shame  that  decent,  clean  creatures  like  horses 
should  make  a  living  for  a  lot  of  dirty  stiffs  out  of 
the  ruin  of  working  men  and  small  shopkeepers. 
Still,  I  dreamed  about  this  double,  and  as  I'm  a 
weak  superstitious  sort  of  chap,  I  put  a  tenner  on 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        291 

it.  That's  the  first  and  the  last  bet  I've  ever  had  on 
a  horse.  But  the  thing  happened  to  come  off;  and 
last  spring  I  found  myself  with  twelve  hundred 
pounds  instead  of  six-fifty.  So  I  began  to  think 
it  out.  I  remembered  that  doctor  fellow  who  cured 
me  of  being  converted,  and  I  thought,  "By  Gad,  I'll 
be  a  doctor.'  A  five  year's  course.  Well,  I'm  not 
particularly  brilliant  at  the  top  end,  and  so  I  al- 
lowed six.  Six  into  twelve  goes  twice.  Two  hun- 
dred a  year  for  fees  and  living  and  clothes — out- 
size— and  recreation.  You  see,  it's  pretty  tight. 
Come  along  and  have  some  lunch  at  Joey's." 

m 

They  went  downstairs  to  the  cloak-room  where 
the  porter  was  now  a  familiar  of  Edwin's.  It  had 
been  decided  that  it  would  not  be  becoming  for  a 
really  modern  university,  like  that  of  North  Brom- 
wich,  to  impose  the  sight  of  such  an  anachronism 
as  academic  dress  on  the  streets,  a  rule  that  had 
been  something  of  a  disappointment  to  Edwin,  and 
so  they  left  their  gowns  behind.  Joey's  was  an 
institution  of  some  antiquity,  opposite  to  the 
Corinthian  town-hall,  with  which  Brown  had  been 
acquainted  in  his  unregenerate  days.  It  was  a  long 
find  noisy  bar  at  which,  for  the  sum  of  fourpence, 
one  consumed  a  quarter  of  the  top  of  a  cottage 
loaf,  a  tangle  of  watercress,  a  hunk  of  Cheddar 
cheese,  and  a  tankard  of  beer.  This  combination 
of  excellences  was  known  as  a  "crust  and  bitter," 
and  it  was  eaten  standing  at  the  counter. 

Edwin  was  gradually  becoming  a  regular  cus- 
tomer at  this  place ;  for  Martin's  delicate  fancy  for 


292         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

plovers  on  toast  and  other  such  refinements  had 
proved  too  expensive  for  him,  and  apart  from  their 
joint  labours  in  the  dissecting-room,  they  were  be- 
ginning to  see  less  of  each  other — not  from  any  ill- 
will  on  the  part  of  either,  but  simply  because  Mar- 
tin's position  in  the  house  of  the  old  lady  in  Alvas- 
ton,  whose  house  was  full  of  animals,  had  intro- 
duced him  to  the  social  life  of  that  elegant  suburb 
in  which  so  perfect  a  carpet  knight  was  bound  to 
shine;  and  Martin's  social  engagements  with  en- 
couraging matrons  and  innumerable  eligible  daugh- 
ters were  becoming  so  pressing  that  his  acquaint- 
ance with  the  black  heart  of  the  city  was  gradually 
becoming  more  and  more  casual.  For  this  reason, 
apart  from  his  natural  inclination,  Edwin  was 
thrown  into  daily  contact  with  Brown  and  his  part- 
ner Maskew. 

Maskew  was  a  more  typical  product  of  the  Mid- 
lands. His  home,  and  all  his  upbringing,  had  lain 
in  one  of  the  great  black  towns  that  cluster,  like 
swollen  knots,  upon  the  North  Bromwich  system 
of  railways.  He  had  never  lived  in  the  country; 
he  did  not  even  know  what  country  was,  and  his 
distinctive  if  provincial  urbanity  showed  itself  in 
a  hundred  ways — in  his  dress,  that  was  a  little  too 
smart,  in  his  speech,  that  was  not  quite  smart 
enough,  in  a  certain  lack  of  fresh  air  in  his  mental 
atmosphere.  His  people  were  wealthy,  and  his 
tastes,  without  emulating  the  style  of  Harrop,  were 
expensive.  He  was  handsome,  and  if  his  hair  had 
been  shorter  and  not  so  mathematically  correct  he 
would  have  been  handsomer.  Still,  he  was  intensely 
interested  in  women,  and  a  great  retailer  of  Rabe- 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        293 

laisian  stories.  He  wore  buttoned  boots  and  was 
very  nearly  a  first-class  billiard  player. 

A  more  unusual  combination  than  his  partner- 
ship with  the  abrupt  and  unsubtle  Brown  it  would 
have  been  difficult  to  imagine;  but  even  in  his  un- 
doubted cleverness,  his  nature  was  complimentary, 
and  Edwin  found  himself  happy  in  the  society  of 
both.  In  their  company  he  became  a  habitue  of  the 
Dousita  Cafe ;  a  subterranean  privacy  in  which  ex- 
cellent coffee  was  served  in  the  most  comfortable 
surroundings  by  young  ladies  whose  charms  had 
already  made  something  of  a  sensation  in  that 
decorous  city.  Maskew,  naturally,  knew  them  all 
by  their  Christian  names,  and  treated  them  with  a 
familiar  badinage  that  impressed  Edwin,  mildly 
ambitious  but  quite  incapable  of  imitation,  by  the 
ease  with  which  it  was  performed.  The  cushioned 
seats  and  the  mild  stimulus  of  the  coffee  and  ciga- 
rettes would  even  rouse  the  massive  Brown  to  a 
ponderous  levity  by  which  the  lady  of  their  choice, 
a  certain  Miss  Wheeler,  whose  uncle,  Maskew  seri- 
ously confided  to  Edwin,  was  a  bishop,  was  obvious- 
ly flattered.  Edwin  could  understand  any  woman 
being  attracted  by  Brown,  or  rather,  "W.G."  as  the 
need  of  a  distinction  had  by  this  time  made  his 
familiar  name.  It  also  pleased  him  to  see  the  way 
in  which  W.G.  went  red  in  his  bull  neck  on  a  cer- 
tain occasion  when  Maskew  had  delicately  over- 
stepped the  limits  of  good  taste  in  his  conversation 
with  Miss  Wheeler.  But  the  niece  of  the  bishop 
did  not  blush.  .  .  . 

In  the  intervals  between  lectures  they  would 
congregate  in  their  gowns  in  a  dismal  chamber, 


294         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

at  the  very  bottom  of  the  cramped  building  that 
was  called  the  Common  Room,  drinking  tea  and 
eating  squashed-fly  biscuits.  This  place  was  fre- 
quented not  only  by  members  of  the  Medical  School 
but  by  students  of  other  faculties  whom  Edwin 
regarded  with  some  contempt.  One  afternoon  on 
entering  this  room  Edwin  found  W.G.  holding  forth 
with  some  indignation  before  a  notice  that  had 
been  pinned  on  the  board  asking  for  a  list  of  fresh- 
men who  were  anxious  to  play  Rugby  football  dur- 
ing the  present  season.  So  far,  only  five  or  six 
names  had  appeared:  W.G.'s,  naturally  enough, 
came  first,  for  his  prowess  in  the  game  was  well 
known  in  the  North  Bromwich  district. 

"Isn't  it  a  damnable  thing,"  he  said  indignantly, 
"in  a  school  of  this  size  to  see  a  measly  list  like 
that?" 

"You  can  stick  mine  down,"  said  Edwin. 

"Well  ...  as  a  matter  of  form,  my  son  .  .  . 
though  I  don't  see  what  good  you're  likely  to  be  to 
the  club  except  to  give  it  tone." 

"I  play  soccer,"  said  Maskew. 

"You  would,"  said  W.G.  "Nice  gentlemanly 
game." 

"Rugger  isn't  all  beef,"  put  in  Edwin. 

"No,"  said  W.G.,  "but  the  team  wants  weight. 
And  this  place  is  simply  thick  with  great,  hefty, 
science  men  and  brewers  who've  never  known  the 
meaning  of  a  healthy  sweat  in  their  lives.  Upon 
my  word,  it  sickens  me.  Look  at  that  chap." 

He  pointed  to  a  corner  in  which  a  big  fellow  lay 
huddled  up  in  a  deep  basket  chair.  He  had 
shoulders  that  would  have  appeared  massive  by 


MORTALITY  BEHOLD  ...        295 

the  side  of  any  others  but  W.G.'s :  a  fair  wide  face 
marked  with  freckles,  a  sandy  moustache  and  crisp, 
curly  red  hair.  "That's  the  kind  of  swine  that 
ought  to  be  working  in  the  scrum." 

Edwin  looked,  and  as  he  did  so,  instinctively 
went  pale.  A  curious  survival  of  the  instinct  of 
physical  fear  had  shaken  him.  It  was  ridiculous. 
"I  know  that  chap,"  he  said  in  an  off-hand  way. 
"He's  no  good.  I  was  at  school  with  him.  He's 
got  a  weak  heart.  His  name's  Griffin." 


CHAPTER  III 

CARNIVAL 


/CHRISTMAS  came:  an  old-fashioned  Christmas 
y*s  with  hoar  frost  on  the  fields  and  hard  roads 
gleaming  with  splintered  light  reflected  from  a 
frosty  sky.  In  this  raiment  of  frozen  moisture 
even  the  black  desert  of  Edwin's  morning  pilgrim- 
age appeared  fantastically  beautiful.  The  vacation 
did  not  suspend  his  work;  for  though  no  lectures 
were  given,  the  dissecting  room  was  still  open ;  and 
here,  on  icy  mornings,  when  the  asphalt  floor  was 
as  cold  as  the  glass  roof,  he  would  freeze  for  an 
hour  at  a  time  watching  Brown  and  Maskew  at 
work,  Martin  having  been  whisked  off  to  spend  a 
baronial  Christmas  of  scratch  dances  in  Ireland. 

A  few  months  in  North  Bromwich  had  made  a 
great  change  in  Edwin.  He  had  lost  much  of  his 
old  timidity,  shaved  twice  a  week,  smoked  the  plug 
tobacco  to  which  Brown  had  introduced  him,  and 
was  no  longer  shy  with  any  creature  on  earth  of 
his  own  sex.  With  women  it  was  different.  .  .  . 
Ease  and  familiarity  with  this  baffling  sex  would 
come,  no  doubt,  in  time;  but  for  the  present  one 
or  two  desperate  essays  at  conversation  with  the 
elegant  Miss  Wheeler  in  the  absence  of  his  friends 

296 


CARNIVAi:  297 

had  been  failures.  And  Miss  Wheeler  was  not  the 
least  approachable  of  her  sex.  There  were  several 
women  medical  students  in  his  year;  but  in  their 
case  he  had  not  felt  the  incentive  to  gallantry  that 
the  softer  charms  of  ^liss  Wheeler  suggested.  Even 
if  they  had  not  insulated  themselves  with  shape- 
less djibbehs  of  russet  brown,  and  bunched  back 
their  hair  in  a  manner  ruthlessly  unfeminine,  the 
common  study  of  a  subject  so  grossly  material  as 
anatomy  would  have  rubbed  the  bloom  from  any 
budding  romance. 

In  the  Biological  laboratory,  however,  he  found 
a  figure  that  exercised  a  peculiar  attraction  on  him. 
She  was  an  American  girl,  a  science  student,  who 
with  the  severity  of  the  medical  women's  dress  con- 
trived to  combine  an  atmosphere  of  yielding  femi- 
ninity. She  had  a  soft  voice,  for  the  tones  of  which 
Edwin  would  listen,  big  grey-blue  eyes,  soft  dark 
hair,  and  very  beautiful  arms  that  her  dark  over- 
alls displayed  to  perfection.  Edwin  would  have 
found  it  difficult  to  define  the  way  in  which  she  at- 
tracted him :  certainly  he  didn't  cherish  any  definite 
romantic  ideas  about  her;  but  he  did  find  her  in 
some  subtle  way  disturbing,  so  that  he  would  be 
conscious  of  her  presence  when  she  came  into  the 
lab. ;  surprise  himself  listening  for  her  voice  when 
she  spoke  to  the  professor,  and  find  that,  without 
any  definite  volition,  his  eyes  were  watching  her 
profile.  And  one  day  when  she  passed  him  and 
her  overall  brushed  his  sleeve,  he  found  that  he 
was  blushing.  Maskew,  with  his  usual  easy  famili- 
arity, was  already  on  joking  terms  with  her,  and 
would  sometimes  sit  on  the  table  where  she  kept 


298         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

her  microscope  while  they  talked  and  laughed  to- 
gether; but  though  Edwin  had  every  chance  of 
sharing  in  this  intimacy,  he  couldn't  bring  himself 
to  do  so;  and  when,  in  the  end,  he  was  introduced 
to  her  formally,  he  wished  that  he  were  dead,  and 
could  not  speak  a  word  for  awkwardness. 

With  men,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  now  quite 
at  his  ease,  even,  strangely  enough,  with  the  once 
formidable  Griffin.  Since  the  day  when  he  had  dis- 
covered his  old  enemy  in  the  Common  Boom  they 
had  often  spoken  to  one  another:  they  had  even 
sat  side  by  side  in  the  deep  basket  chairs,  one  of 
which  was  now  Griffin's  habitual  abode,  and  talked 
of  the  old  days  at  St.  Luke's,  and  sometimes,  in  the 
afternoon,  they  would  share  a  pot  of  tea.  There 
was  no  awkwardness  in  their  conversation,  as  Ed- 
win had  feared  there  might  be,  for  Griffin  appar- 
ently took  his  expulsion  as  a  matter  of  course,  and, 
on  the  whole,  as  rather  a  good  joke.  Of  course 
Griffin  had  changed.  It  was  clear  to  Edwin  from 
the  first  that  in  some  way  he  had  shrunk — not  in- 
deed physically,  for  he  was  fatter  than  ever;  but 
the  air  of  conscious  and  threatening  physical  su- 
periority that  Edwin  had  found  so  oppressive  in 
his  school  days  had  vanished.  Moreover,  he  was 
now  prepared  to  accept  Edwin  as  an  equal,  and 
make  him  the  confidant  of  the  amorous  adventures 
that  now  absorbed  his  time,  adventures  to  which 
the  affair  with  the  chambermaid  at  St.  Luke's  had 
been  the  mildest  possible  prelude.  Compared  with 
Griffin's  positive  achievements,  the  daring  of 
Maskew's  relation  with  the  young  ladies  of  the 
Dousita  seemed  a  trifle  thin.  Griffin's  father,  with 


CARNIVAL  299 

a  shrewd  appreciation  of  his  son's  peculiar  gifts, 
had  entered  him  as  a  student  at  the  school  of  brew- 
ing; and  if  once  he  could  overcome  his  natural 
indolence,  there  was  no  reason  why,  in  the  future, 
he  should  not  become  a  partner  in  the  firm  of  his 
uncle,  Sir  Joseph  Astill,  and  control  the  destinies 
of  a  number  of  barmaids  beyond  the  dreams  of  con- 
cupiscence. On  these  prospects,  Griffin,  lounging 
in  his  basket  chair,  brooded  with  a  heavy  satisfac- 
tion. 

"It's  a  funny  thing,  isn't  it?"  Edwin  said  one 
day,  "that  we  should  be  the  only  St.  Luke's  men  in 
this  place." 

"Oh,  some  are  bound  to  turn  up  sooner  or  later," 
said  Griffin.  "The  other  day,  when  I  was  up  in 
town,  I  ran  against  Widdup — you  remember  Wid- 
dup — and  he  told  me  that  his  people  thought  of 
sending  him  here  to  take  up  engineering." 

"That  would  be  rather  good  fun,"  said  Edwin. 
"And  he's  cut  out  for  it  too.  He's  got  that  sort  of 
head.  I  should  rather  like  to  see  old  Widdup." 

"Oh,  he'll  roll  up  one  of  these  days.  Are  you 
doing  anything  in  particular  this  afternoon?  I 
have  to  stroll  down  to  see  the  stage-manager  at  the 
Gaiety  ...  an  awful  good  sport.  Suppose  we  go 
down  the  town  and  get  a  drink  on  the  way  ..." 

In  spite  of  the  temptations  of  this  adventure, 
Edwin  declined.  In  the  dissecting  room,  half  an 
hour  later,  Brown  hailed  him : — 

"What  the  devil  were  you  doing  with  that  pig 
of  a  brewer,  Ingleby?" 

"He's  an  old  school  friend  of  mine." 

"Well,  I  should  keep  that  dark,  if  I  were  you. 


300         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

He's  a  bad  hat,  that  chap.  We  don't  want  Ingleby's 
virginal  innocence  corrupted,  do  we,  Maskew?" 

"Oh,  he's  not  a  bad  sort,"  Edwin  protested. 

"He's  a  nasty  fellow,  and  he'll  come  to  a  rotten, 
sticky  end,"  said  Brown.  "Now,  what  do  you  think 
of  this  small  sciatic,  you  old  roue,  for  a  tricky  bit 
of  dissection?" 

After  all,  Edwin  reflected,  old  Brown  knew 
something  of  the  world.  He  had  to  admit  to  him- 
self that  there  was  something  obscene  about  Griffin. 
It  was  difficult  to  explain,  for  Maskew,  by  his  own 
account,  was  almost  equally  worldly,  and  yet 
Maskew  was  undeniably  a  decent  fellow  while 
Griffin  undeniably  wasn't.  He  joined  his  friends  at 
their  work,  and  could  think  about  nothing  else ;  for 
Maskew's  brains  were  as  good  as  his  own,  though 
of  a  different  texture,  and  he  had  to  be  attentive 
to  keep  pace  with  them.  All  through  the  vac.  he 
worked  at  anatomy  with  these  two,  sometimes  in 
the  icy  dissecting  room,  sometimes  over  coffee  at 
the  Douaita,  sometimes  in  the  cozy,  diminutive 
diggings  that  Brown  inhabited  in  Easy  Kow,  a 
street  of  Georgian  houses  at  the  back  of  the  uni- 
versity buildings  and  near  the  Prince's  Hospital. 

They  were  pleasant  days.  Edwin,  in  spite  of  his 
lightness,  had  now  found  a  place  in  the  scrum  of 
the  second  fifteen,  and  on  Saturday  evenings,  when 
both  of  them  were  drugged  with  their  weekly 
debauch  of  exercise,  he  and  W.G.  would  meet  at 
the  diggings  in  Easy  Kow,  and  after  a  steaming  hot 
bath,  in  the  process  of  which  Edwin  never  failed 
to  be  impressed  by  the  immensity  of  his  friend's 
physique,  they  would  set  off  down  the  town  together 


CARNIVAL  301 

and  make  a  tremendous  meal  at  the  Coliseum  grill : 
Porterhouse  steak  with  chipped  potatoes  and  huge 
silver  tankards  of  bitter  ale.  Then  they  would  go 
on  together  to  a  theatre  or  a  music  hall,  too  pleas- 
antly dulled,  too  mildly  elated  to  question  the 
humour  of  the  most  second-rate  comedian.  After 
the  show  W.G.  would  walk  down  to  the  station  with 
Edwin,  and  see  him  off  into  the  last  train  for 
Halesby,  and  Edwin,  leaning  out  .of  the  carriage 
window,  would  see  the  big  man  turn  and  go  clum- 
sily along  the  platform  with  the  gait  that  he  had 
noticed  on  the  very  first  day  of  his  life  as  a  medical 
student.  Brown  was  a  wonderful  fellow.  In  half 
an  hour,  Edwin  reflected,  when  his  train  was  still 
puffing  away  through  the  dark,  W.G.  would  be  back 
in  his  diggings  with  a  clay  pipe  stuck  in  his  mouth 
and  a  huge  text-book  of  Anatomy  open  on  his  knees, 
driving  facts  into  that  puzzled  brain  with  the 
violent  thoroughness  of  an  engine  that  drives  piles. 
When  the  last  train  arrived  at  Halesby,  the  town 
would  be  in  darkness,  for,  in  the  black  country  in 
those  days  the  only  places  of  amusement  were  the 
public  houses  and  these  had  been  shut  for  an  hour 
or  more.  Only  from  the  upper  windows  of  innumer- 
able mean  dwellings  lights  would  be  seen,  and  some 
times  the  voice  of  a  drunken  husband  heard  grumb- 
ling. But  the  path  beside  the  fish-ponds  was  beauti- 
ful, even  on  a  winter  night,  and  Edwin  would  feel 
glad  as  he  plodded  along  it  that  he  didn't  live  in 
North  Bromwich,  where  the  night  noises  of  the 
country  were  never  heard.  So  he  would  pass  quietly 
up  the  empty  lane,  his  footsteps  echoing  on  the 
hard  pavement,  and  come  at  last  to  the  little  house 


302         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

set  in  the  midst  of  shrubberies  that  smelt  of  winter. 
Very  humble  and  quiet,  and  even  pitiable  it  seemed 
after  the  glaring  streets  of  the  city  that  he  had 
left  behind. 

It  was  an  understood  thing  that  on  Saturdays, 
when  he  had  been  playing  football,  Edwin  should 
return  by  the  last  train;  and  so  his  father  did  not 
sit  up  for  him  on  these  occasions.  The  matter  had 
been  settled  at  the  cost  of  some  awkwardness.  On 
the  first  two  or  three  Saturdays  of  the  football  sea- 
son Edwin  had  come  home  late,  to  find  Mr.  Ingleby 
growing  cold  over  the  embers  of  a  fire  in  the  dining- 
room,  sleepy  but  intensely  serious,  and  his  tired 
eyes  had  examined  Edwin  so  closely  that  he  felt 
embarrassed,  being  certain  that  his  face  must  bear 
signs  of  a  number  of  enormities  that  he  had  never 
dreamed  of  committing.  It  was  the  same,  unrea- 
sonable feeling  of  guilt  that  he  had  experienced  at 
St.  Luke's  in  the  middle  of  Mr.  Leeming's  pitched 
battle  for  purity,  and  the  sensation  was  so  strong 
that  he  felt  it  useless  to  try  and  hide  it. 

"Why  do  you  look  at  me  like  that,  father?"  he 
said.  The  quietude  and  humility  of  the  little  room 
seem  to  him  as  full  of  accusation  as  his  father's 
face. 

"What  do  you  mean,  boy?" 

"I  think  you  know  what  I  mean.  .  .  .  There's 
really  no  need  for  you  to  wait  up  for  me  like  this." 

"I  like  to  lock  the  house  up,"  his  father  replied, 
with  a  quietness  that  made  Edwin's  voice  sound 
rowdy  and  violent.  "I  have  always  done  so.  After 
all,  it's  usual." 

"You  are  anxious  about  me.    Why  should  you 


CARNIVAL  303 

be  more  anxious  about  me  when  I  come  in  at  twelve 
than  when  I  come  in  at  six?" 

"I  know  you're  passing  a  critical  period,  Eddie. 
.  .  .  I'm  not  unsympathetic.  I've  been  through  it 
myself.  And  naturally  I'm  anxious  for  you.  I 
know  that  a  town  is  full  of  temptations  for  a  boy 
of  your  age.  I  don't  know  what  your  friends  are 
like.  I  don't  know  what  sort  of  influences  you're 
coming  in  contact  with " 

"But  I  don't  see  why  that  should  make  you  want 
to  sit  up  for  me.  Keally,  I  don't.  What  good  does 
it  do?" 

"I  like  to  see  you  when  you  come  in."  Edwin  was 
uncomfortably  aware  of  this. 

"But  suppose  I  was  drunk  when  I  came  in, 
father "  he  said. 

"I  don't  suppose  anything  of  the  sort " 

"No,  but  supposing  I  was.  What  advantage 
would  there  be  in  your  seeing  me?  What  good 
would  it  do?" 

"At  any  rate  I  should  know  that  there  was  a 
danger." 

"Well,  if  that's  all  th'e  trouble,  we  can  soon  get 
over  it.  I  promise  you,  that  I'll  tell  you  the  very 
first  time  that  I  am  in  the  least  drunk.  Then  you 
needn't  worry  about  waiting  for  it.  I  suppose  it's 
bound  to  happen  some  day." 

"I  sincerely  hope  it  isn't,  Eddie.  It  isn't  pleasant 
to  me  to  hear  you  talk  like  that." 

"No.  ...  I  suppose  it  would  be  pleasanter  if  we 
pretended  that  nothing  of  the  kind  ever  happened. 
But  it  wouldn't  be  honest,  would  it?  I  should  think 
it's  the  duty  of  every  one  to  be  drunk  some  time  or 


304         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

other,  if  it's  only  to  see  what  it  feels  like.  Surely, 
father,  you " 

"Edwin,  Edwin.  .  .  .  Really  we  mustn't  be  per- 
sonal. You  forget  that  I'm  your  father." 

"But  I  don't,  father.  I  thought  we  were  going 
to  be  such  tremendous  pals,  and  honestly  there  isn't 
much  to  be  pals  on  if  you  aren't  ever  personal.  We 
ought  to  talk  about  everything.  We  oughtn't  to 
hide  anything.  I  don't  see  much  fun  in  it  if  I  have 
to  do  all  the  telling  and  you  don't  give  anything 
in  return.  It  isn't  fair." 

"But,  my  dear  boy,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby,  with  a 
nervous  laugh,  "you  seem  to  neglect  the  fundamen- 
tal fact  that  I'm  your  father." 

"I  don't  see  why  that  should  prevent  us  being 
honest.  I  don't  see  why  it  should  prevent  you  from 
trusting  me " 

"I  do  trust  you,  Eddie." 

"Then  that's  all  right;  so  you  needn't  wait  up 
for  me  again." 

Thus  the  matter  was  settled,  at  any  rate  on  the 
surface,  though  Edwin  was  always  conscious  on 
the  morning  after  his  late  arrivals  of  an  anxious 
scrutiny  on  his  father's  part. 

"He  doesn't  really  trust  me,"  he  thought,  and  this 
conviction  made  him  more  anxious  than  ever  to 
be  really  intimate  with  his  father,  to  make  him 
share,  as  much  as  possible,  the  life  that  he  was 
living  in  North  Bromwich.  It  made  him  talk 
deliberately  of  the  men  who  were  his  friends,  and 
the  work  that  he  was  doing,  explaining  with  the 
greatest  freedom  the  domestic  difficulties  of  W.G., 
and  the  worldly  accomplishments  of  Maskew:  and 


CARNIVAL  305 

this  frankness  gave  him  confidence  until  he  dis- 
covered that  such  revelations  only  ended  by  arous- 
ing his  father's  suspicions.  In  Mr.  Ingleby's  mind 
it  was  evident  that  the  sterling  qualities  of  W.G., 
as  recited  by  Edwin,  were  of  less  importance  than 
his  potentialities  as  an  agent  in  Edwin's  corruption. 
"If  I'd  only  given  him  one  side  of  W.G.,"  thought 
Edwin,  "he'd  have  been  quite  happy.  If  we're  going 
to  be  happy,  it  would  be  much  better  for  me  to  tell 
him  nothing  that  his  imagination  can  work  on." 

He  found  himself  travelling  round  the  old  vicious 
circle  that  appeared  to  be  the  inevitable  result  of 
being  honest  with  himself.  There  must,  after  all, 
be  something  in  the  fundamental  fact  that  Mr. 
Ingleby  was  his  father.  Ridiculous  though  it  might 
seem,  the  ideal  relation  between  father  and  son  was 
evidently  impossible.  "Well,"  he  said  with  a  sigh, 
"it  isn't  my  fault.  I've  done  my  best." 

The  whole  artificiality  of  their  relation  only 
dawned  on  him  when  he  mentioned  to  his  father 
one  evening  that  he  had  met  Griffin  and  told  him 
that  his  old  enemy  turned  out  to  be  a  nephew  of 
Sir  Joseph  Astill.  "I'm  glad  to  hear  of  it,"  said  Mr. 
Ingleby.  "I  hope  you'll  continue  to  be  friends. 
Sir  Joseph  Astill  is  a  very  distinguished  man." 
Edwin  didn't  see  what  that  had  to  do  with  it ;  but 
he  resisted  the  temptation  of  telling  his  father  that 
Griffin  was  a  distinctly  bad  egg,  and  that  in  com- 
parison with  him  W.G.,  with  his  herculean  pas- 
sions, was  indeed  a  paragon  of  knightly  virtues.  If 
it  pleased  his  father  to  invest  Griffin  with  his 
uncle's  reflected  glory,  why  shouldn't  he  do  so?  And 
Edwin  held  his  tongue. 


306         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

In  the  end  the  atmosphere  of  veiled  anxiety  that 
awaited  him  at  home  became  definitely  irksome,  and 
since  the  most  absolute  candour  on  his  part  would 
not  mend  matters,  he  found  himself  gradually 
avoiding  his  father's  company.  It  was  the  last 
thing  in  the  world  that  he  wanted  to  do;  but  it 
seemed  inevitable;  and  as  the  months  passed,  he 
gave  up  all  hopes  of  the  sort  of  intimacy  that  he 
had  desired,  and  relapsed  into  the  solitude  of  his 
own  room,  or  even,  as  a  last  resort,  the  company 
of  Aunt  Laura,  who  was  at  least  unsuspicious. 

Another  thing  attracted  him  to  her  house.  All 
the  days  of  his  childhood  at  home  had  been  full 
of  music,  for  his  mother  had  been  a  capable  pianist, 
and  he  had  spent  long  hours  stretched  out  on  the 
hearthrug  in  the  drawing-room  listening  to  her 
while  she  played  Bach  and  Beethoven  and  occasion- 
ally Mendelssohn  on  the  piano.  At  St.  Luke's,  too, 
without  any  definite  musical  education,  he  had  felt 
a  little  of  the  inspiration  that  Dr.  Downton  infused 
into  the  chapel  services.  Since  he  had  returned  to 
Halesby  all  these  pleasures  had  left  him;  for  Mr. 
Ingleby  was  not  in  the  least  musical,  and  the  piano 
that  had  been  closed  a  few  days  before  his  mother's 
death,  had  never  been  reopened.  At  this  period  he 
had  not  realised  the  musical  possibilities  of  North 
Bromwich,  and  in  Aunt  Laura's  house  he  recap- 
tured a  little  of  this  stifled  interest. 

She  was  really  an  accomplished  musician,  and 
though  the  kind  of  music  that  she  affected  was  be- 
coming limited  by  the  very  character  of  her  life 
as  the  wife  of  an  undistinguished  manufacturer  of 
small  hardware  in  a  small  black-country  town,  the 


CARNIVAL  307 

taste,  which  had  originally  been  formed  in  Ger- 
many, existed  and  was  easily  encouraged  by  Ed- 
win's admiration  of  her  attainments.  Here,  usually 
on  Sundays,  when  in  addition  to  the  attraction  of 
music  her  admirable  cooking  was  to  be  appreciated, 
Edwin  passed  many  happy  hours.  She  sang  well, 
and  could  accompany  herself  with  something  of  a 
natural  genius,  and  though  the  songs  that  she  sang 
were  often  enough  the  sugary  ballads  of  the  period 
that  had  witnessed  her  musical  extinction,  Edwin 
found  them  satisfying  to  his  starved  sense  of  music, 
and  would  even  persuade  her,  on  occasion,  to  play 
the  pieces  of  Chopin,  Beethoven,  and  Bach  with 
which  his  mother  had  made  him  familiar. 

Nothing  aroused  in  him  an  acute  remembrance 
of  those  ancient  happy  days  more  easily  than  music. 
He  wished,  above  all  things,  that  he  might  some  day 
be  able  to  taste  these  joys  for  himself;  and  so  he 
persuaded  his  aunt  to  teach  him  the  notes  on  the 
piano,  and  having  an  inherited  aptitude,  he  soon 
found  that  he  could  pick  his  way  through  simple 
compositions,  preferably  in  the  open  key,  that  he 
found  among  his  mother's  music  at  home.  Mr. 
Ingleby,  who  had  no  ear,  appeared  to  be  unmoved 
by  these  painful  experiments;  and  to  Edwin,  the 
long  winter  evenings  were  made  magical  by  their 
indulgence.  He  would  sit  at  the  piano  in  the  draw- 
ing-room for  hours  at  a  time,  and  here,  in  a  strange 
way,  he  found  himself  curiously  in  touch  with  the 
vanishing  memory  of  his  mother.  At  times  this 
feeling  was  so  acute  that  he  could  almost  have 
imagined  that  she  was  there  in  the  room  beside  him, 
and  sometimes  he  would  sit  still  at  the  piano  in  long 


308         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

intervals  of  silence,  just  drinking  in  this  peculiar 
and  soothing  atmosphere.  Eventually  these  diver- 
sions made  Mr.  Ingleby  uneasy. 

"You  spend  a  good  deal  of  time  at  the  piano, 
Edwin,"  he  said.  "I  do  hope  you  are  not  letting  it 
interfere  with  your  work." 

Edwin  said  nothing;  but  from  that  time  onward 
it  seemed  to  him  that  even  this,  the  most  harmless 
of  his  amusements,  had  become  a  matter  for  grudg- 
ing and  suspicion.  At  first  he  only  felt  indignation 
and  anger;  but  later  he  realised  that  this,  along 
with  his  father's  other  anxieties,  probably  had  its 
origin  in  financial  considerations.  The  cost  of  his 
education  in  North  Bromwich  was  a  big  thing  for  a 
country  chemist  to  face.  If  once  he  failed,  the 
whole  of  his  early  effort  might  be  wasted.  But 
then,  he  was  not  going  to  fail. 

H 

The  terminal  examinations  at  Christmas  had 
made  him  sure  of  this.  They  showed  him  that  in 
his  own  year  he  and  Maskew  were  in  a  class  by 
themselves;  and  though  Maskew  beat  him  easily 
in  all  the  subjects  of  the  examination,  it  satisfied 
him  a  little  to  think  that  Maskew  had  probably 
put  in  a  good  deal  more  work  than  he  had,  particu- 
larly in  anatomy,  where  he  had  the  advantage  of 
working  in  partnership  with  W.G.,  for  whom  the 
subject  of  medical  education  was  of  the  most  deadly 
seriousness. 

Early  in  the  Lent  term  Edwin  found  himself 
introduced  to  a  new  stratum  of  North  Bromwich 
society,  through  the  accident  of  his  acquaintance 


CARNIVAL  309 

with  Griffin.  The  new  university  had  inherited 
from  the  old  college  of  science  and  the  still  older 
medical  school,  the  tradition  of  a  pantomime  night, 
a  visit  en  masse  to  one  of  the  North  Bromwich 
theatres,  where  this  elevating  art-form  flourished 
for  three  months  out  of  the  twelve.  The  evening 
was  one  of  fancy  dress,  rowdiness,  and  general 
licence,  in  which  the  stage  suffered  as  much  as  the 
auditorium,  and  the  unfortunate  players  were  pro- 
pitiated for  the  ruin  of  their  performance  by  a 
series  of  presentations. 

Arrangements  for  this  function  were  always 
made  with  a  high  seriousness.  The  committee  was 
composed  of  representatives  from  each  year  in  the 
school  of  medicine  and  from  each  of  the  other 
faculties.  In  this  affair,  as  in  all  matters  of  sport 
or  communal  life,  the  older  foundation  of  the 
medical  school  took  the  most  prominent  part;  but 
the  prestige  of  Griffin  as  the  nephew  of  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  and  an  acknowledged  expert  on  all  mat- 
ters theatrical,  had  induced  the  brewers  to  run  him. 
for  the  secretaryship;  and  since  the  secretary  was 
the  official  on  whom  the  bulk  of  the  work  fell,  and 
no  one  was  particularly  anxious  to  take  on  the  job, 
Griffin,  in  his  first  year,  had  been  elected  to  the 
post. 

There  was  no  denying  the  fact  that  it  suited  him. 
To  begin  with,  he  was  already  on  intimate  terms 
with  every  theatre  manager  and  stage-doorkeeper 
in  North  Bromwich,  and  was  used  to  dealing  with 
the  susceptibilities  of  theatrical  people.  Again,  he 
had  plenty  of  money,  a  circumstance  that  would 
help  him  in  the  preliminaries,  which  were  expen- 


«3io         LTHE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

isively  conducted  in  the  local  Bodega  and  other  bars 
and  restaurants.  Also,  it  gave  Griffin  something 
to  do ;  for  the  life  of  the  student  in  brewing  was  of 
the  leisurely  and  somnolent  character  that  one 
would  naturally  associate  with  malt  liquors,  and 
most  of  his  time  had  previously  been  spent  sprawl- 
ing in  a  deep  basket  chair  in  the  Common  Room, 
playing  an  occasional  languid  game  of  poker,  or 
jingling  sovereigns  in  his  pocket  while  he  waited 
for  the  results  of  racing  in  the  evening  papers. 

At  the  annual  meeting,  which  Edwin  had  not 
been  sufficently  interested  to  attend,  there  had  been 
the  usual  difficulty  in  selecting  a  member  from  the 
unknown  quantities  of  the  first  year,  and  Griffin, 
full  of  resource,  had  suggested  Edwin,  who  was 
straightway  elected,  and  summoned  to  attend  the 
deliberations  that  followed.  His  election  caused  a 
good  deal  of  amusement  to  his  friends,  and  partic- 
ularly Martin,  who  preserved  an  aristocratic  con- 
tempt for  this  vulgar  theatrical  business,  and  W.G., 
who  prophesied  Edwin's  conversion  into  a  thorough- 
going blood ;  but  it  introduced  him  to  a  new  and  be- 
wildering society  in  which  he  met  a  number  of  men 
of  his  own  faculty  who  had  already  become  impres- 
sive at  a  distance. 

Such  were  the  brothers  Wade,  the  elder  unap-, 
proachable  in  his  final  year,  the  younger  of  an  ele- 
gance surpassing  that  of  Harrop.  Such  was 
Freddie  St.  Aubyn,  a  slight  and  immaculate  figure 
with  fair  hair  and  moustache,  and  the  most  care- 
fully cultivated  reputation  for  elegant  dissipation 
in  North  Bromwich.  This  Byronic  person  had  al- 
ready suffered  the  pangs  of  a  long  intrigue  with  the 


CARNIVAL  311 

premiere  danseme  in  a  musical  comedy  company, 
on  whom  he  was  reputed  to  have  spent  money  and 
passion  lavishly  but  without  the  least  suggestion 
of  grossness. 

In  addition  to  this  he  was  a  poet:  that  is  to 
say,  he  had  published  two  volumes  of  verse  that 
were  so  eclectic  as  to  be  out  of  print.  At  the  pres- 
ent time  he  had  stuck  midway  in  his  medical  career 
pending  the  issue  of  his  unhappy  passion ;  and  pre- 
sented the  unusual  spectacle  of  a  "chronic,"  not  by 
force  of  incompetence,  but  by  choice.  In  point  of 
fact,  he  was  an  unconscious  survival  from  the 
nineties,  and  the  lady  of  his  choice  resembled  a 
creation  of  Beardsley  more  than  any  type  common- 
ly known  to  nature.  Edwin  was  impressed,  for 
the  writer  of  the  exhausted  Poems  of  Passion  was 
the  first  poet  that  he  had  met  in  the  flesh.  Natural- 
ly, St.  Aubyn's  attitude  towards  the  first-year  man 
was  a  little  patronising ;  but  Edwin  found  his  mix- 
ture of  cynicism  and  melancholy  enchanting,  and 
was  particularly  impressed  when  Freddie,  languid- 
ly supporting  his  sorrows  in  one  of  the  Common 
Boom  easy-chairs,  offered  him  a  fill  from  his  pipe. 

"Oh,  by  the  way,  there's  opium  in  it,"  he  said 
casually. 

Visions  of  Coleridge  and  de  Quincey  invaded  Ed- 
win's mind.  He  stopped  filling  his  pipe. 

"Opium?  Why  on  earth  do  you  put  opium  in 
it?" 

"It  is  an  aid  to  the  imagination,"  said  Freddie, 
"and  it  deadens  pain." 

"Mental  pain,"  he  added  sgnificantly,  after  a 
pause.  "For  that  alcohol  is  useless.  I've  tried  it." 


312         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"I  think  I'll  have  some  of  my  own,  if  you  don't 
mind,"  said  Edwin. 

"I  quite  agree  with  you.  It  would  be  much 
wiser,"  said  St.  Aubyn.  "Luckily  you  have  no  need 
•for  it.  Facilis  descensus  Averni." 

From  that  day  forward  Edwin  was  always  eager- 
ly searching  the  face  and  the  pupils  of  Freddie  for 
any  symptoms  of  opium  poisoning.  He  never  found 
any;  and  W.G.,  to  whom  he  confided  this  thrilling 
incident,  assured  him  that  there  was  nothing  in  it, 
that  Freddie  had  probably  never  smoked  opium  in 
his  life,  and  that  the  whole  thing  was  nothing  more 
than  one  of  the  poseS  that  this  gentleman  adopted 
for  shocking  the  youthful  and  bourgeois.  The  im- 
pressive Freddie,  according  to  W.G.,  was  a  damned 
anaemic  waster.  If  only  it  had  not  been  for  the 
exhausted  Poems  of  Passion,  Edwin  might  have 
agreed  with  him. 

The  solemn  meetings  of  the  panto-night  commit- 
tee engaged  Edwin  three  afternoons  a  week.  As  a 
congregation  of  amazing  bloods  they  were  enthrall- 
ing but  as  business  gatherings  they  were  more  re- 
markable still.  They  were  held  in  the  saloon  bar 
of  a  modern  public  house,  all  palatial  mahogany, 
red  plush  and  plate-glass,  called  the  White  Horste; 
and  the  principal  business  of  the  day  was  the  con- 
sumption of  hot  whisky  with  sugar  and  slices  of 
lemon  in  it,  during  which  Griffin,  armed  with  a 
conspicuous  note-book,  reported  on  his  activities, 
^hich  appeared  mainly  to  be  social. 

"On  Thursday,"  he  would  say,  "I  took  Mary 
Xoraine  to  lunch  at  the  Grand  Midland,  and  she 
asaid  .  .  ."  or  "I  saw  Tommy  Fane  in  his  dressing- 


CARNIVAL  313 

room  the  other  night,  and  he  said :  'Look  here,  old 
boy.  .  .  .'  *  Apparently  all  Griffin's  theatrical 
friends  called  him  "old  boy."  The  effect  of  these 
narrations  on  Griffin  would  be  so  exhausting  that 
he  found  it  necessary  to  order  more  whisky  all 
round.  The  manager  himself  would  bring  it  in;  a 
brilliant  gentleman  named  Juniper  with  red  baggy 
cheeks  the  laxness  of  which  wras  compensated  by 
a  waxed  moustache  that  stuck  out  on  either  side 
as  if  a  skewer  had  transfixed  them.  To  Griffin  this 
magnificent  creature  was  most  decorous;  for  the 
White  Horse  was  one  of  Astill's  houses,  and  Griffin 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  inform  him  that  the  great 
Sir  Joseph  was  his  uncle.  In  spite  of,  rather  than 
as  a  result  of  these  meetings,  the  panto-night  ar- 
ranged itself.  The  date  was  fixed,  the  bouquets  and 
presents  purchased,  the  announcements  in  the 
papers  that  warned  any  patrons  of  pantomime 
that  on  this  particular  night  they  could  not  hope 
to  see  a  normal  performance,  inserted.  Griffin,  in 
the  Common  Room,  became  a  centre  of  feverish 
importance,  and  even  Edwin,  in  spite  of  the  super- 
ciliousness of  Martin,  and  the  rough  chaff  of  W.G., 
caught  a  little  of  the  reflected  glamour. 

Edwin  now  had  to  face  the  ordeal  of  announcing 
the  approach  of  panto-night  to  his  father.  If  he 
were  to  see  the  thing  through,  as  was  his  duty  as 
a  member  of  the  committee,  it  would  be  quite  im- 
possible for  him  to  catch  the  last  train  to  Halesby, 
which  left  North  Bromwich  at  nine-thirty,  except 
on  Thursday  and  Saturday  night.  Mr.  Ingleby, 
hearing,  saw  the  pit  gaping  beneath  Edwin's  feet. 
"You  didn't  mention  this  to  me  before.  ...  I  sup- 


3H        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

pose  you  have  had  to  spend  quite  a  lot  of  time  at 
these  committee  meetings?  I  think  it  was  rather 
unwise  of  you  to  undertake  it  in  your  first  year. 
.  .  .  There's  only  four  months  before  your  exami- 
nation." 

"Oh,  I  think  the  exam,  will  be  all  right,"  said 
Edwin  airily. 

"I  don't  like  to  hear  you  speak  like  that,  Edwin," 
said  his  father.  "Over-confidence  is  a  dangerous 
thing." 

"But  it  wouldn't  be  any  better  pretending  that 
I  didn't  think  it  was  all  right,  surely?" 

"Well,  humility  is  a  great  virtue." 

"Not  any  greater  than  honesty." 

"It's  all  very  well  to  talk  about  honesty;  but  it 
would  have  been  more  honest,  wouldn't  it,  if  you'd 
told  me  that" — he  hesitated — "this  was  going  on?" 

"There  you  are.  .  .  .  That's  the  whole  point.  If 
I  told  you  everything  you  wouldn't  sleep  for 
imagining  things  that  hadn't  happened.  It's  the 
thing  that's  worried  me  ever  since  I  was  at  school. 
If  you're  absolutely  honest  with  other  people,  life 
simply  isn't  worth  living,  because  they  don't  under- 
stand it.  It  isn't  done.  I've  come  to  the  conclusion, 
father,  that  the  only  thing  that  really  matters  is  to 
be  honest  with  yourself." 

"If  you  can  trust  yourself " 

"Well,  I  think  I  can.  .  .  .  And  I  wish  you'd  be- 
lieve in  it." 

"I  do,  Edwin.  Only  naturally  I'm  anxious. 
You're  a  child.  Where  is  this  .  .  .  this  perform- 
ance held?" 

"At  the  Queen's  Theatre  this  year." 


CARNIVAL  315 

"Well,  I  suppose  that  is  better  than  a  music  hall." 

His  father's  prejudice  against  the  music  halls,  or, 
as  they  were  then  beginning  to  be  called,  Theatres 
of  Varieties,  was  an  old  story.  Edwin  could  hardly 
resist  the  temptation  of  telling  him  that  the  per- 
formers in  the  pantomime  were  nearly  all  music- 
hall  artistes,  but  Mr.  Ingleby  saved  him,  by  asking 
him  where  he  intended  to  sleep. 

"Oh,  I  expect  W.G.  will  give  me  a  shake-down  in 
his  digs." 

"I  suppose,"  said  Mr.  Ingleby,  with  a  shade  of 
anxiety,  "that  Brown  is  also  on  the  committee " 

The  idea  of  the  honest  W.G.  as  a  member  of  this 
constellation  of  bloods  tickled  Edwin.  He  now 
wished  to  goodness  he'd  never  told  his  father  of 
W.G.'s  family  differences  and  of  his  lucky  double 
on  the  Lincoln  and  National. 

"Oh,  no,  old  W.G.'s  far  too  sober  for  this  sort  of 
thing." 

It  was  an  unfortunate  word. 

"Sober?"  repeated  Mr.  Ingleby.  "Well,  I  sup- 
pose you  will  have  to  go ;  but  I  do  hope " 

He  didn't  say  what  he  hoped ;  but  Edwin  knew, 
and  was  content  to  leave  it  at  that. 

in 

The  great  day  came,  and  Edwin  found,  as  some 
compensation  for  the  scoffing  of  W.G.  and  the  super- 
ciliousness of  Martin  and  Maskew,  that  his  position 
was  really  one  of  some  importance.  All  the  first- 
year  men,  even  the  immaculate  Harrop,  had  de- 
cided to  go  to  the  theatre,  and  up  to  the  last  minute 
Edwin  was  busy  selling  tickets.  He  had  asked 


316         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

W.G.  to  put  him  up,  and  W.G.,  as  a  matter  of  form, 
had  consented.  "I  don't  suppose  I  shall  see  you 
after  midnight,  my  son,"  he  said.  With  his  usual 
thoroughness  in  everything  that  he  attempted,  W.G. 
had  determined  to  make  a  night  of  it.  "It  will  do 
me  good  to  make  a  damned  fool  of  myself  for  once 
in  a  way,"  he  said,  "if  it's  only  for  the  sake  of  realis- 
ing it  afterwards  .  .  ." 

They  put  in  a  hard  afternoon's  work  together 
first,  and  then  he  and  Edwin  and  Maskew  went  to- 
gether to  W.G.'s  rooms  to  change.  They  were  all 
rather  excited,  and  W.G.  carried  a  bottle  of  whisky 
in  each  of  his  coat  pockets,  the  first  of  which  was 
broached  as  an  aperitif  while  they  were  changing. 
In  less  than  an  hour  they  emerged,  W.G.  attired 
as  nearly  as  convention  would  allow  him,  in  the 
manner  of  his  woaded  ancestry:  a  splendid  cave- 
man with  lowering  black  brows  and  hairy  arms  like 
those  of  a  gorilla,  a  disguise  that  only  called  for  a 
little  accentuation  of  his  natural  characteristics  to 
be  made  effective ;  Maskew,  again  in  character,  as  a 
Restoration  cavalier;  and  Edwin  in  the  modest 
guise  of  Pierrot.  In  the  foyer  of  the  theatre  they  met 
Martin,  who  had  driven  down  in  a  hansom  from 
Alvaston  clothed  in  six  feet  of  baby  linen,  with  a 
feeding  bottle  round  his  neck.  The  stalls  were  al- 
ready full  of  a  carnival  crowd  of  students,  and  the 
rest  of  the  house  was  crowded  with  spectators  who 
had  come  to  enjoy  the  rag,  and  other  unfortunate 
people  who  had  entered  in  ignorance  of  the  festival 
and  the  fact  that  their  form  of  entertainment  was 
to  be  changed  for  one  night  only. 

There,  among  the  crowd,  Edwin  found  Griffin,  a 


CARNIVAL  317 

fleshy  and  unsubtle  Mephistopheles,  the  Mephis- 
topheles  of  Gounod,  not  of  Goethe,  and  Freddie  St. 
Aubyn,  romantically  pale  in  a  wig  of  black  curls 
that  he  had  procured  for  his  presentation  of  Byron. 
Freddie,  in  the  interests  of  verisimilitude,  had  even 
shaved  his  moustache. 

Only  the  earlier  part  of  the  performance  re- 
mained in  Edwin's  memory.  The  rest  of  it  was  no 
more  to  him  than  a  brilliant  haze,  from  which  single 
moments  of  wild  picturesqueness  detached  them- 
selves :  as  when  he  had  a  vision  of  a  prehistoric  man 
armed  with  a  waving  whisky  bottle  for  a  club  and 
feebly  restrained  by  a  flushed  cavalier,  flown  with 
insolence  and  wine,  storming  his  way  through  the 
surging  crowd  in  front  of  the  stalls  bar  and  plant- 
ing his  feet  upon  the  counter;  or  of  the  same  bar- 
barian, gently  armed  by  a  tactful  manager  in  eve- 
ning dress,  putting  his  weapon  to  the  usages  of 
peace  and  friendliness  by  uncorking  it  and  offering 
its  contents  to  a  firm  but  good-humoured  police- 
man. 

"What  a  splendid  fellow  W.G.  is,"  Edwin  thought 
to  himself.  "Splendid  .  .  .  splendid  .  .  .  magnifi- 
cent." And  while  he  was  thinking  this,  a  sombre 
poet  with  shining  eyes  drew  him  aside  and  con- 
fessed to  him,  almost  with  tears,  that  all  this  bril- 
liance and  colour  and  life  meant  nothing  to  him 
compared  with  the  memory  of  the  Beardsley  lady, 
whose  ankles  were  so  thin  that  they  might  be 
spanned  with  his  little  finger.  "As  light  as  a 
feather,"  said  the  poet,  "gossamer  .  .  .  swansdown 
...  all  soul.  Of  course,  old  fellow,  I  know  that 


•318         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

you  can  understand.  I  shouldn't  talk  like  this  to 
any  other  person  in  the  world." 

And  Edwin  understood,  and  realised  the  justice 
of  the  poet's  choice  of  a  confidant  so  sympathetic- 
ally that  he  was  spurred  to  confidences  on  his  own 
part.  "You  see,  I  happen  to  be  a  poet  myself,"  he 
said,  and  to  prove  it  he  felt  bound  to  recite  a  sonnet 
that  he  had  composed  a  year  or  two  before  at  Stt 
Luke's.  A  magnificent  sonnet  it  seemed  to  him,  per- 
haps more  magnificent  for  Jlie  accompaniment  of  a 
song  in  waltz  rhythm  by  the  theatre  orchestra.  It 
was  flattering  to  find  that  Byron  agreed  with  him 
as  to  its  excellence ;  but  while  the  poet  was  pressing 
Ms  hand  in  congratulatory  brotherhood,  and  Edwin 
was  just  deciding  to  recite  it  all  over  again,  the 
sinister  figure  of  Mephistopheles  appeared  and 
parted  them,  telling  him  that  Miss  Marie  Loraine 
was  now  singing  the  last  verse  of  her  song  and  that 
in  two  minutes  it  would  be  his  duty  to  present  her 
with  a  bouquet  and  a  pair  of  silver  hair-brushes. 
Still  reciting  the  most  telling  lines  of  his  sonnet, 
he  was  conducted  by  Mephistopheles  through  the 
manager's  office,  where  a  young  lady  who,  in  her  in; 
viting  softness,  resembled  Miss  Wheeler,  was  count- 
ing the  counter-foils  of  tickets,  and  through  a  sub- 
terranean  passage  with  the  welcome  chill  of  a  cata- 
comb, to  the  wings  of  the  theatre,  where  a  florid 
bouquet  was  thrust  into  his  hands. 

It  struck  Edwin  that  the  scent  of  the  flowers  was 
of  a  suffocating  heaviness,  until  he  realised  that 
the  overpowering  perfume  of  which  he  was  aware 
proceeded  not  from  the  bouquet  but  from  the  scents 
and  powders  of  a  bevy  of  creatures  of  unnatural 


CARNIVAL  319 

loveliness  who  stood  waiting  in  the  wings.  They 
were  the  ladies  of  the  chorus,  and  the  nature  of 
their  costume  would  have  given  them  an  excuse 
for  shivering;  but  they  did  not  appear  to  be  con- 
scious of  the  heat  that  throbbed  in  Edwin's  brain. 
The  scent  and  the  proximity  of  such  a  huge  expanse 
of  naked  flesh  excited  him.  At  this  moment  all 
his  awkwardness  seemed  to  have  vanished.  He 
could  not  believe  that  he  was  the  same  person  who 
had  blushed  at  "the  mere  contact  of  the  American 
girPs  overall,  or  sat  speechless  in  the  presence  of 
Miss  Wheeler  at  the  Dousita.  His  old  modesty 
seemed  to  him  to  have  been  a  ridiculous  and  inex- 
cusable folly;  for,  at  the  moment,  he  would  have 
welcomed  the  prospect  of  making  the  most  shame- 
less advances  to  any  one  of  these  houris  in  competi- 
tion with  any  man  of  his  acquaintance.  With  the 
air  of  a  Sultan  he  surveyed  them,  deciding  to  which 
of  those  blossoms  the  handkerchief  should  be 
thrown. 

"Now  get  along  with  you,"  said  the  stage-man- 
ager, pushing  him  forward. 

He  gripped  the  presents  in  his  hands,  and  tread- 
ing on  air,  advanced  on  to  the  stage,  where  Miss 
Marie  Loraine  was  kissing  her  hands  to  the  stalls. 
The  stage  was  very  big,  and  sloped  in  such  a  way 
that  he  felt  his  feet  impelled  towards  the  footlights ; 
but,  being  determined  that  he  would  accomplish 
his  mission  with  dignity,  Edwin  steered  a  steady, 
if  resilient,  course.  In  front  of  him  he  saw  a  crea- 
ture before  whose  elegance  and  beauty  the  beauty  of 
the  chorus  was  as  nothing.  She  stood  waiting  for 
Itim  and  smiled.  For  a  moment  Edwin  faced  the 


320         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

auditorium,  a  vast  and  dark  abyss  in  which  not 
a  single  face  was  to  be  seen.  It  gave  him  a  sudden 
fright  to  think  that  so  many  thousands  of  unseen 
eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  patch  of  limelight  in  which 
he  stood.  He  pulled  himself  together.  This  was 
the  moment,  he  thought,  in  which  it  was  for  him 
to  make  some  speech  worthy  of  the  bewildering  love- 
liness that  stood  before  him. 

"Go  on,"  said  the  impatient  voice  of  Mephia- 
topheles  in  the  wings.  "Buck  up." 

"Miss  Loraine,"  said  Edwin,  with  a  flourish,  "I 

have  the  honour  of "  The  middle  of  his  sentence 

was  broken  by  a  crash  and  a  tremendous  peal  of 
laughter  from  the  unseen  thousands.  The  younger 
Wade,  arrayed  in  the  panoply  of  a  Roman  legionary 
and  balanced  upon  the  parapet  of  the  stage  box, 
had  fallen  with  a  clash  of  armour  into  the  big  drum. 
Edwin  thrust  the  bouquet  and  the  hair-brushes  into 
the  arms  of  Miss  Loraine,  herself  convulsed  with 
laughter.  With  a  terrific  draught  the  curtain  swept 
down. 

"Splendid,"  said  the  voice  of  Mephistophelean 

The  rest  of  the  evening  was  more  confused  than 
ever.  He  remembered  a  vision  of  this  surpassing 
beauty  standing  in  the  wings  in  a  long  silk  wrapper 
that  her  dresser  had  thrown  over  her  shoulders, 
and  thanking  him  for  his  presentation.  To  Edwin 
the  moment  seemed  the  beginning  of  a  passionate 
romance.  He  remembered  other  moments  in  the 
auditorium,  in  which  W.G.  and  Maskew  figured. 
He  remembered  the  taste  of  a  glass  of  Benedictine, 
a  liqueur  that  he  had  never  tasted  before,  that 
Maskew  gave  him  to  pull  him  together  again  after 


CARNIVAL  321 

his  exertions  on  the  stage.  He  remembered  a  flash- 
ing of  lights,  an  uproar,  a  free-fight,  and  the  sing- 
ing of  "God  Save  the  Queen."  And  then  he  found 
himself  a  member  of  a  small  but  distinguished 
brotherhood  streaming  at  a  tremendous  rate  up  the 
wide  street  that  led  towards  the  Prince's  Hospital. 
All  of  them  were  medicals,  and  most  of  them  his 
seniors.  Freddie  St.  Aubyn,  the  Wade  brothers, 
W.G.,  and  Maskew  were  among  them.  Out  of  the 
main  road  they  passed  singing  into  the  meaner 
streets  that  surrounded  the  hospital :  miserable 
streets  with  low  houses  and  courts  clustered  on 
either  side,  from  the  upper  .windows  of  which 
astonished  working  men  and  women  in  their  night- 
dresses put  out  their  heads  to  look  at  the  vocal  pro- 
cession. Opposite  the  portico  of  the  hospital  was 
a  cab  rank  on  which  a  solitary  hansom  was  stand- 
ing with  the  horse  asleep  in  the  shafts  and  the 
driver  taking  his  rest  inside.  The  sight  appeared  to 
arouse  the  fighting  instincts  of  the  elder  Wade. 

"Good  God,"  he  said,  with  indignation,  "here's  a 
cab.  What  the  hell  does  the  fellow  think  he's  doing 
here  at  this  time  of  night?  He  must  be  drunk.  Look 
at  it!" 

His  brother,  who  could  carry  his  liquor  better, 
tried  to  persuade  him  to  leave  the  cab  alone;  but 
before  any  one  knew  what  was  happening,  he  had 
thrown  himself  on  it  and  turned  the  whole  affair 
upside  down  in  the  road.  Edwin  heard  a  crash 
of  splintered  glass ;  he  saw  the  cab  on  its  side  and 
the  sleepy  horse  with  its  legs  in  the  air.  He  thought : 
"Good  God!  What  has  happened?"  And  the  next 
thing  he  saw  was  a  red-faced  cabman,  buttoned 


322         THE  .YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

up  to  his  ears,  crawling  out  of  the  wreckage  and 
cursing  fluently  at  Wade,  who  stared  for  a  moment, 
dazed,  at  the  havoc  his  strength  had  created,  and 
then  bolted  for  the  shelter  of  the  hospital.  The 
cabman,  now  thoroughly  awakened,  bolted  after 
him.  Edwin  glowed  with  admiration  for  Wade'g 
achievement.  It  was  the  deed  of  a  Titan,  a  splendid 
Berserker.  The  cabby  had  burst  through  the  con- 
course on  the  hospital  steps,  thirsting  for  the  blood 
of  Wade,  who,  by  this  time,  was  lying  quietly  on 
a  hooded  stretcher  swatched  in  bandages  and  quite 
unrecognisable.  A  house  surgeon  in  a  white  overall 
confronted  the  cabman.  The  hospital  porters  in 
uniform  stood  solemnly  at  his  elbow.  The  house 
surgeon  was  assuring  the  cabby  that  he  was  drunk : 
the  cabby  telling  the  lot  of  them  exactly  what  he 
thought  of  them. 

"Take  hold  of  this  fellow,"  said  the  house 
surgeon  to  the  porters,  "and  hold  him  while  I  get  a 
stomach  pump."  The  porters,  specially  qualified 
for  dealing  with  midnight  drunks,  obeyed.  There 
was  a  splendid  struggle  in  which  the  foaming  cabby 

was  pitched  out  into  the  road, ing  their ing 

eyes  to  Hell.  The  bandaged  Wade  was  carried 
solemnly  upstairs  on  his  stretcher  and  brought 
round  with  whisky  in  the  house  surgeon's  room,  a 
chamber  full  of  Olympian  card-players,  pickled 
with  cigar-smoke  and  the  fumes  of  alcohol.  Some 
one,  it  was  the  cavalier,  began  to  play  the  piano. 
Edwin  seized  the  opportunity  to  recite  his  sonnet, 
until  W.G.  laid  a  monstrous  hand  on  his  mouth. 

That  vision  ended,  and  to  it  succeeded  one  of 
cool,  deserted  streets  with  far  too  many  kerb-stones 


CARNIVAL  323 

for  Edwin's  liking,  and  then  the  dishevelled  sitting- 
room  in  W.G.'s  digs  in  which  they  had  dressed  with 
a  pale  gas-jet  hissing  and  flaring  and  a  momentary 
impression  of  W.G.  asking  him  where  he'd  put  the 
damned  corkscrew.  Edwin  remembered  rising  to 
a  brilliant  extreme  of  wit.  "Am  I  your  corkscrew's 
keeper?"  he  said;  and  while  he  was  explaining  at 
length  the  aptness  of  his  mot  W.G.  knocked  the 
neck  off  the  bottle  with  his  poker,  eclipsing  any 
possible  verbal  brilliance. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  Edwin  woke  and 
staggered  in  the  dark  to  the  washhand-stand,  where 
he  drank  a  draught  of  water,  so  cool  and  sweet  as 
to  be  astonishing,  until  he  remembered  that  it  had 
possibly  come  from  the  mountains  beyond  Felindre. 
W.  G.  was  snoring  heavily  on  the  bed  that  he  had 
just  left.  W.G.'s  snoring  got  on  his  nerves  so  that 
he  had  to  prod  him  in  the  ribs  and  wake  him,  a  pro- 
ceeding that  W.G.  seemed  unjustly  to  resent. 

"I  say,  W.G.,"  he  said,  "do  you  think  I  was 
drunk?" 

"Drunk?"  said  W.G.  "Good  God,  you  didn't 
wake  me  to  ask  me  that?  You'll  know  all  right  in 
the  morning." 

Edwin  only  knew  that  his  head  was  splitting  and 
that  he  was  hellishly  cold. 


CHAPTER  IY 

SCIENCE 


WG.'S  prophecy  that  Edwin  would  know  all 
•  about  it  in  the  morning  proved  correct ;  but 
it  was  some  consolation  to  him  to  know  that  he 
shared  the  experience  with  his  friends.  All  the 
next  day  he  went  about  his  work  with  Maskew  feel- 
ing a  little  light-headed,  and  a  peculiar  weakness 
in  the  legs  made  him  disinclined  for  any  exertion 
that  could  be  avoided.  Maskew  recovered  himself 
more  easily ;  but  W.G.,  who  never  did  anything  by 
halves,  solemnly  embarked  on  a  "bust"  that  lasted 
for  a  whole  week. 

This  defection  disgusted  Maskew,  who,  in  his 
hard,  capable  way,  believed  in  moderation  in  all 
things — even  in  vice.  He  considered  W.G.'s  con- 
duct "a  bit  thick";  principally  because  he  was  de- 
prived of  his  company  in  the  dissecting  room ;  but 
to  Edwin  the  big  man's  debauch  seemed  in  some 
ways  heroic  and  in  keeping  with  his  titanic  physical 
nature :  a  spectacle  rather  for  awe  than  for  reproof. 
It  was  even  impressive  to  see  W.G.  returning  like  a 
giant  refreshed  with  vice,  throwing  his  huge 
energies  into  the  pursuits  that  he  had  abandoned 
as  readily  as  he  had  lately  squandered  them  in  an 

324 


SCIENCE  325 

atmosphere  of  patchouli.  In  this  line  Edwin 
would  have  found  it  constitutionally  impossible  to 
compete  with  W.G.,  but,  for  all  that,  he  could  not 
deny  that  he  felt  better,  more  confident,  and  more 
complete  for  the  pantomime  experience.  It  even 
flattered  him  to  find  himself  regarded  as  something 
of  a  blood  by  the  humbler  members  of  his  year  who 
had  witnessed  his  adventure  on  the  Queen's  Theatre 
stage,  though  he  could  not  conceal  from  himself 
the  fact  that  Martin,  more  absorbed  than  ever  in 
blameless  but  exacting  relations  with  the  eligible 
young  ladies  of  Alvaston,  was  a  little  supercilious 
as  to  his  attainments. 

With  the  approach  of  the  summer  and  the  first 
examination  he  found  little  time  for  anything  but 
work.  The  preparation  for  the  exam,  was  so  much 
of  a  scramble  that  he  had  no  time  to  realise  the 
imaginative  significance  of  the  subjects  in  which 
he  was  engaged.  He  did  not  guess  that  the  little 
fat  professor  of  Physics  who  lectured  so  drily  on 
the  elements  of  his  science  was  actually  employing 
his  leisure  in  the  tremendous  adventure  of  weighing 
the  terrestrial  globe,  or  that  certain  slender  aerials 
stretched  like  the  web  of  a  spider  from  a  mast  at 
the  top  of  the  university  buildings  were  actually 
receiving  the  first  lispings  of  wireless  telegraphy, 
an  achievement  to  which  that  bearded  dreamer,  the 
Principal,  had  devoted  twenty  years  of  his  life. 

To  Edwin  there  was  nothing  intrinsically  ro- 
mantic in  Chemistry  or  Physics.  His  mind  could 
not  conceive  that  science  was  a  minute  and  infinite- 
ly laborious  conquest  of  the  properties  of  matter. 
Atoms  and  Molecules  and  the  newly-dreamed 


326         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Electrons,  still  trembling  in  the  realms  of  impon- 
derable speculation,  were  no  more  to  him  than 
abstractions  unrelated  to  the  needs  of  practical 
human  life.  They  were  only  facts  to  be  learned 
by  rote,  symbols  to  be  memorised  and  grouped  to- 
gether on  paper  like  the  letters  in  an  algebraic  cal- 
culation ;  and  the  whole  of  this  potentially  romantic 
experience  was  clouded  by  his  own  headachy  dis- 
taste for  the  gaseous  smells  of  the  laboratory:  the 
choking  yellow  fumes  of  chlorine  that  escaped  from 
the  glass  cupboards  in  which  it  was  manufactured, 
and  the  less  tolerable,  if  more  human,  odour  of 
Sulphuretted  Hydrogen,  in  an  air  that  was  desic- 
cated by  the  blue  flames  of  half  a  hundred  Bunsen 
burners.  These  two  subjects  wrere  nothing  more 
than  an  arid  desert  of  facts  relating  to  dead  mat- 
ter through  which  he  had  to  fight  his  way,  and  he 
hated  them. 

In  comparison  with  them,  Biology  was  something 
of  an  oasis.  Here,  at  any  rate,  he  had  to  deal  with 
life,  a  mystery  more  obvious  and  less  academic. 
The  contemplation  of  its  lower  forms,  such  as  the 
Amoeba,  a  tiny  speck  of  dreamy  protoplasm  stretch- 
ing out  its  languid  tentacles,  living  its  remote  and 
curiously  detached  life  with  no  aims  beyond  that 
of  bare  mysterious  existence,  filled  him  with  a 
strange  awe.  The  laboratory  in  which  these  re- 
searches were  conducted,  was  high  and  airy  and  not 
associated  with  any  unpleasant  smells  except  at  the 
season  when  the  class  were  engaged  upon  the  dis- 
section of  the  hideous  dog-fish.  It  had  even  its 
aspects  of  beauty  in  the  person  of  the  fair  American 
in  her  dark  overall ;  and  for  this  reason,  if  for  no 


SCIENCE  327 

other,  Edwin  found  himself  becoming  most  pro- 
ficient in  his  knowledge  of  the  subject. 

In  the  middle  of  the  summer  the  examination 
came.  Maskew  was  an  easy  first,  and  carried  off 
the  Queen's  scholarship  for  the  year;  Edwin  came 
second  with  a  first-class,  which,  even  if  it  didn't 
satisfy  himself,  was  enough  to  make  his  father  en- 
thusiastic; Martin  ambled  through  with  an  ease 
that  challenged  Edwin's  respect,  and  W.G.,  horribly 
intense  and  determined  through  all  the  week  of 
the  exam.,  scraped  through  by  virtue  of  sheer  bull- 
dog tenacity.  The  result  of  the  examination  did 
Edwin  good  if  only  by  convincing  him  that  Maskew, 
for  all  his  suburban  flashiness  and  his  inferior  gen- 
eral education,  had  a  better  head  than  his  own. 
Like  the  excellent  man  of  business  that  he  was^ 
Maskew  did  not  rest  upon  his  oars :  the  week  af tee- 
the examination,  and  the  first  of  the  long  vacation, 
found  him  and  W.G.  back  in  the  dissecting  room, 
plugging  into  anatomy,  the  next  year's  principal 
subject,  and  Edwin  saw  at  once  that  if  he  were  to 
keep  pace  with  his  rival  he  would  have  to  forgo  the 
months  of  summery  leisure  to  which  he  had  looked 
forward  in  the  vacation.  Martin  was  playing  tennis 
in  Ireland,  and  so  he  found  himself  thrown  once 
more  into  the  society  of  these  two. 

It  was  a  pleasant  time,  for  their  leisure  was  their 
own  and  there  were  no  lectures  to  tie  them  to  their 
work.  They  did  a  great  deal  of  their  reading  in 
W.G.'s  rooms,  full  of  easy-chairs,  and  wreathed  in 
tobacco  smoke  that  escaped  through  a  French 
window  into  a  tiny  garden  plot  green  and  pleasant 
under  the  white  Midland  sky,  and  this  room  became 


328         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

a  haven  of  escape  from  the  burning  brick  pavements 
in  which  Edwin  and  his  friends  would  work  to- 
gether without  strain,  talking  of  the  future  and  of 
W.G.'s  romantic  past,  and  stabilising  their  own 
ideas  on  the  uncertainties  of  sex :  a  problem  that  so 
far  had  meant  very  little  to  Edwin,  but  which  W.G. 
was  not  in  a  position  to  ignore. 

"You  know,  it's  damned  funny,"  he  said,  "but 
when  you  get  to  know  more  about  things,  when 
you've  done  some  anatomy  and  that,  you  begin  to 
think  of  sex -in  a  different  light.  It  knocks  all  the 
mystery  out  of  it,  and  I'm  sure  that's  a  jolly  sound 
thing.  Good  Lord,  when  I  think  of  the  ignorance 
with  which  I  started  on  this  sort  of  thing !  Finding 
out  everything  by  experiment,  you  know.  .  .  .  Why, 
if  I'd  had  a  short  course  of  anatomy  before  I  left 
school  I  should  have  been  saved  a  lot  of  rotten  ex- 
periments that  didn't  do  me  or  any  one  else  any 
good.  I'd  have  been  a  damned  sight  cleaner- 
minded  than  I  ever  was.  A  medical  training's  a 
jolly  good  thing  in  that  way:  shows  you  exactly 
where  you  are  instead  of  letting  you  go  fumbling 
about  in  the  dark." 

"Knocks  all  the  poetry  out  of  it  though,"  said 
Maskew. 

"Poetry  be  damned,"  said  W.G.  seriously, 
"there's  a  good  deal  too  much  of  your  poetry  about 
it.  Poetry  and  mystery  and  a  lot  of  bunkum  like 
that  .  .  .  Male  and  female  created  He  them.  I  don't 
particularly  admire  the  method.  I  think  He  made 
rather  a  better  job  of  the  amceba.  Think  how  much 
simpler  it  would  be  to  split  open  a  chunk  of  proto- 
plasm instead  of  having  to  make  a  ridiculous  fool 


SCIENCE  329 

of  yourself  if  you  want  to  propagate  your  species. 
Still,  there  it  is,  and  the  sooner  you  realise  exactly 
what  it  means  and  what  it's  all  about,  the  less  you 
worry  your  head  about  it." 

"Well,  of  course,  if  you're  going  to  treat  it  in 
that  light  you're  going  to  knock  all  the  pleasure 
out  of  life "  Maskew  protested. 

"Oh,  you're  a  sensualist,"  said  W.G.  "The  main 
thing  that  I  have  against  it  is  that  it  wastes  valu- 
able time."  He  became  scornful.  "Think  of  all 
these  rotten  fellows  who  spend  their  days  writing 
books  on  sexual  problems,  analysing  their  rotten 
little  sensations  in  detail  and  gloating  over  myster- 
ies of  sex.  It's  only  their  ignorance  that  makes 
them  like  that.  What  they  want  is  a  thorough 
course  of  anatomy  and  a  whack  of  practical  experi- 
ence to  cure  them;  and  if  every  one  else  had  the 
same  sort  of  education  there'd  be  no  sale  for  their 
books." 

Edwin,  listening  to  their  sparring,  remembered 
the  library  at  St.  Luke's  and  a  certain  shelf  of 
anatomical  works  that  was  always  kept  locked  with 
a  special  key  that  Mr.  Leeming  carried  mysteriously 
on  his  watch-chain.  On  the  whole,  he  agreed  with 
W.G.  and  his  preferences  for  the  methods  of  the 
Amoeba's  parthenogenesis.  He  wondered,  however, 
if  the  kind  of  education  that  W.G.  advocated  would 
have  scotched  the  production  of  such  works  as 
Romeo  and  Juliet  or  the  love  poems  of  Shelley. 

"It  would  be  rather  rotten  if  you  did  away  with 
love,  W.G.,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  talking  about  love,"  said  W.G. 
"I'm  talking  about  a  fellow's  ordinary  physical 


336        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

needs.    Being  in  love  is  not  the  same  thing  as  that." 
"It  is  usually,"  said  the  cynical  Maskew. 
"It's    all    a    ridiculous    mix-up,"    said    Edwin. 

"Thank  God  it  doesn't  worry  us." 

n 

With  the  beginning  of  the  new  year  these  deli- 
cious hours  of  leisure  disappeared.  Edwin  and  his 
friends,  with  the  assurance  of  second-year  men,  be- 
came the  real  possessors  of  the  dissecting  room. 
Anatomy  and  physiology  now  absorbed  all  their 
time,  and  the  leisurely  interest  in  the  first  subject, 
which  had  been  subsidiary  in  the  first  year,  was 
now  a  matter  of  academical  life  and  death.  From 
the  simple  anatomical  details  of  the  upper  and 
lower  extremities  that  he  had  dissected  with  Martin 
in  the  year  before,  he  passed  to  the  more  vital 
regions  of  the  human  body:  the  thorax,  the 
abdomen,  and  the  head  and  neck.  He  still  attended 
the  polished  course  of  lectures  on  anatomy  that  the 
Dean  delivered  in  the  theatre;  but  this  process  he 
was  forced  to  regard  as  a  waste  of  time,  since  the 
Dean's  presentation  of  the  subject  did  not  differ 
greatly  from  that  of  any  text-book  of  anatomy,  and 
the  Dean's  personality,  which  curiously  resembled 
that  of  his  cousin  Martin,  was  too  aristocratically 
remote  ever  to  seem  real. 

In  the  dissecting  room,  on  the  other  hand,  he  be- 
came acquainted  and  fascinated  with  the  first  of  his 
medical  instructors  who  had  aroused  his  imagina- 
tion. This  was  the  chief  demonstrator  of  Anatomy, 
Robert  Moon,  or,  more  familiarly,  Bobby,  a  figure 
•of  romantic  picturesqueness.  He  was  tall  and  in- 


SCIENCE  33! 

clined  to  be  fat,  he  always  wore  a  black  frock-coat, 
and  his  serious  face,  which  was  of  a  size  and  pallor 
that  his  surname  suggested,  was  crowned  by  an 
erect  crop  of  black  and  curly  hair.  In  Edwin's  first 
year  he  had  always  seemed  to  him  a  strange  and 
distant  figure,  walking  slowly  up  and  down  the 
dissecting  room,  on  the  occasions  when  he  emerged 
from  the  dark  chamber  which  he  inhabited  in  the 
corner  near  the  door,  like  a  fat  and  rather  sinister 
spider. 

He  rarely  spoke :  when  he  did  so  it  was  with  a 
broad,  north  country  accent  and  the  most  extraordi- 
nary deliberation  and  formality  in  his  choice  of 
words.  With  the  men  in  the  second  year  he  pos- 
sessed an  enormous  reputation  not  only  for  his 
exhaustive  knowledge  of  anatomy,  by  the  side  of 
which  the  Dean's  attainments  seemed  merely  those 
of  a  dilettante,  but  also  for  his  excellence  as  a  coach. 
Edwin  and  his  two  friends  became  sedulous  at- 
tendants at  his  tutorials,  where,  standing  in  im- 
mobile dignity  behind  one  of  the  zinc  dissecting- 
room  tables  in  front  of  an  appropriate  background 
of  blackboard,  and  surrounded  by  a  ring  of  second- 
year  students,  who  came  to  sit  at  his  feet  volunta- 
rily, like  the  disciples  of  a  Greek  philosopher,  he 
would  demonstrate  the  details  of  some  ragged 
anatomical  part  that  had  lain  in  spirit  until  it  was 
of  the  colour  and  consistency  of  leather. 

In  Bobby's  demonstrations  there  was  neither 
imagination  nor  romance:  they  were  merely  fas- 
cinating in  virtue  of  the  amazing  exactitude  of  the 
detail  which  his  brain  had  acquired  through  long 
familiarity  with  the  dismembered  fragments  of 


332         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

humanity.  There  was  nothing  in  the  way  of  minute 
observation  that  could  escape  him,  and  his  ques- 
tions were  so  searching  and  unexpected  that  even 
Maskew,  who  had  himself  a  prodigious  memory  for 
minute  detail  and  could  carry  the  letter  of  a  text- 
book in  his  head,  was  constantly  floored  by  them. 
It  was  a  magnificent  stimulus  to  Edwin ;  for  it  be- 
came a  kind  of  game  to  master  a  part  so  thoroughly 
that  Bobby  could  not  stump  him. 

By  this  time  he  was  so  used  to  railway  travelling 
that  between  the  morning  discussion  of  the  progress 
of  the  war  that  had  just  broken  out  in  South  Africa, 
and  the  appearance  of  halfpenny  papers,  that  multi- 
plied like  greenfly  in  this  heated  atmosphere,  he 
could  read  his  text-books  of  anatomy  in  a  crowded 
carriage  without  disturbance  apart  from  the  natural 
curiosity  that  a  vision  of  luridly  coloured  diagrams1 
awakened  in  the  minds  of  his  fellow  passengers,  and 
particularly  the  bank  clerk,  who  thirsted  in  a  way 
that  W.G.  would  have  approved  for  technical  in- 
struction in  the  matter  of  certain  organs.  Edwin 
prepared  himself  for  the  demonstrator's  tutorials 
as  rigorously  as  if  he  had  been  approaching  a  vital 
examination;  he  spent  long  hours  in  his  bedroom, 
utterly  heedless  of  his  wide  prospect  of  wintry  fields, 
thinking  of  nothing  but  his  collection  of  bleached 
bones,  now  carefully  marked  with  coloured  chalks 
to  show  the  origins  and  insertions  of  muscles,  and 
particularly  those  intricate  fretted  plates  that  are 
joined  to  form  the  fragile  casket  of  the  human  skull. 

So  engrossed  was  he  in  absorbing  the  mere  details 
of  their  physical  form  that  his  mind  had  no  room 
for  other  speculations  of  the  kind  that  had  im- 


SCIENCE  333 

pressed  him  in  the  days  of  his  first  acquaintance 
with  anatomy.  It  never  struck  him  that  the  articu- 
lated skull  which  grinned  at  him  from  his  mantel- 
piece when  he  woke  each  morning,  had  once  con- 
tained the  convolutions  of  a  human  brain:  a  mass 
of  pulpy  matter  that  had  been  the  origin  of  strange 
complications  of  movement  and  feeling  and  thought, 
the  storehouse  of  memories,  the  spring  of  passions 
and  the  theatre  of  dreams.  He  did  not  even  know 
if  the  skull  were  that  of  a  man  or  a  woman.  To 
him  it  was  no  more  than  an  assembly  of  dry  bones, 
intricate  in  their  relations  with  one  another,  pierced 
by  the  foramina  of  bewildering  nerves  and  blood- 
vessels, all  of  which  must  be  visualised  and  stored 
and  remembered  within  the  limits  of  another  struc- 
ture of  the  same  kind — the  sutures  and  eminences 
of  which  he  could  feel  with  his  own  fingers  when 
he  rubbed  his  puzzled  head. 

He  used  to  go  back  to  Mr.  Moon's  tutorials  con- 
vinced that  he  knew  all  that  was  to  be  known  of  the 
subject  in  hand,  and  then  Bobby,  in  his  slow  Lan- 
cashire voice,  with  broadened  "a"s  and  "u"s,  would 
put  to  him  some  leisurely  question  that  showed  him 
that  he  knew  nothing.  Very  decorously  and  slowly 
these  questions  would  be  asked;  and  since  the  an- 
swers were  concerned  with  the  dryest  and  most  ex- 
act of  physical  facts,  guessing  was  of  no  help  to 
him  and  silence  the  only  refuge  of  the  ignorant.  No 
display  either  of  knowledge  or  ignorance  had  the 
least  effect  on  Bobby  Moon.  His  wide  and  dreamy 
face  showed  no  emotion  on  the  discovery  of  either. 
On  very  rare  occasions  he  would  descend  to  a  kind 
of  ponderous  verbal  humour,  slow  and  elephantine, 


334         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

like  the  humour  of  Beethoven;  but  even  in 
these  moments  his  face  showed  no  signs  of  emo- 
tion, and  he  would  pass  on  without  waiting  for  any 
recognition  of  his  joke  to  the  next  lethargic  ques- 
tion. "Mr.  Harrop,"  he  would  say  slowly,  "what  is 
the  fotty  pod  of  Hovers?"  And  Harrop,  sitting  on 
a  high  stool  that  showed  his  variegated  socks  to 
perfection,  would  reply  that  the  fatty  pad  of  Havers 
was  a  small  cushion  of  fat  set  in  the  head  of  the 
femur  to  lubricate  the  hollow  of  the  acetabulum. 

The  picturesque  figure  of  Moon  soon  began  to 
dominate  Edwin's  impressions  of  the  dissecting 
room.  There  was  something  provocative  in  the 
remoteness  of  this  black  and  solitary  form  from  all 
the  concerns  of  human  life.  Edwin  conceived  him 
to  be  a  kind  of  cerebral  abstraction,  no  man,  but 
an  advanced  text-book  of  anatomy;  curiously  en- 
dowed with  the  powers  of  locomotion  and  speech 
but  bereft  of  any  human  characteristic.  It  amazed 
him  to  discover,  in  the  end,  that  Bobby  Moon  was 
nothing  of  the  sort,  but  a  creature  of  the  most  deli- 
cate human  tenderness,  so  sensitive  to  the  appeals 
of  beauty  and  humanity  that  he  had  been  forced  to 
adopt  the  impassive  mask  that  was  all  that  his  pu- 
pils knew  of  him  from  an  instinct  of  self-protec- 
tion. 

It  happened  in  this  way.  During  the  early  part  of 
his  second  year  Edwin  had  become  conscious  of  a 
new  figure  in  the  dissecting  room,  that  of  a  man 
named  Boyce,  a  student  with  a  brilliant  reputation 
who  had  managed  in  some  inexplicable  way  to  fail 
in  his  first  examination  and  be  left  behind  by  the 
other  men  of  his  year.  He  was  a  tall,  fair  creature, 


SCIENCE  335 

with  a  long  face  and  small,  very  blue  eyes.  The 
society  of  Alvaston  had  made  him  friendly  with 
Martin,  from  whom  Edwin's  new  relations  were 
gradually  separating  him.  The  only  characteristic 
that  Edwin  had  so  far  noticed  in  Boyce  was  an 
almost  literary  fluency  in  the  use  of  foul  language 
which  left  even  Harrop  gasping.  Boyce  was  work- 
ing alone  on  a  thorax  a  few  tables  away  from  Edwin. 
He  was  a  neat  and  laborious  dissector,  and  Edwin 
had  been  tempted  to  admire  the  skill  with  which 
he  had  defined  the  network  of  blood-vessels,  the  sys- 
tem of  coronary  arteries  and  veins,  with  which  the 
human  heart  is  enmeshed.  Boyce  was  evidently  far 
less  unapproachable  than  Edwin  had  imagined,  and 
while  they  were  examining  his  dissection  together 
they  had  not  noticed  the  approach  of  Dr.  Moon,  who 
had  walked  slowly  to  their  table  and  stood  gazing 
at  the  specimen  through  his  moonlike  pince-nez. 
They  did  not  realise  that  he  was  near  them  until 
they  heard  his  voice,  slowly  intoning  a  line  of 
poetry.  "The  heart,"  he  said:  "arras'd  in  purple 
like  a  house  of  kings.  Are  you  acquainted  with  that 
line,  Mr.  Boyce?" 

"No,  sir.    Who  wrote  it?" 

"A  man  named  Francis  Thompson.  He  was  a 
medical  student  at  Manchester,  several  years  senior 
to  me." 

"Oh,  I  know  his  name,"  said  Boyce.  •  "He  is  a 
friend  of  my  father's." 

"A  great  poet,"  said  Bobby  solemnly.  "A  great 
poet.  The  contemplation  of  mortality  in  this  place 
should  be  full  of  poetical  reflections.  You  see,  this 


336        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

is  the  heart  of  a  very  old  or  a  very  dissolute  man. 
The  coronary  arteries  are  stiff  with  atheroma." 

"I  was  thinking,  sir,"  said  Edwin,  encouraged, 
"of  the  heart  of  Shelley  that  Trelawny  was  sup- 
posed to  have  picked  out  of  the  funeral  pyre  when 
the  body  was  burned.  His  account  says  that  only 
the  heart  was  left.  He  gave  it  to  Hunt,  didn't  he? 
But  you'd  think  the  heart  would  be  burned  more 
easily " 

"Yes.  .  .  .  It's  an  unlikely  story.  Shelley's  hearth 
—he  looked  up  dreamily  at  the  ceiling — "Shelley's 
heart.  .  .  .  It's  a  strange  reflection."  And  he  moved 
away,  his  big  head  still  in  the  air  and  his  hands 
behind  his  back. 

"I  say,"  said  Edwin,  "I'd  no  idea  Bobby  was  like 
that.  You  wouldn't  associate  him  with  poetry, 
would  you?  He  seems  such  an  awfully  matter-of- 
fact  chap.  Dry  bones,  you  know." 

Boyce  laughed.  "Oh,  you  don't  know  Bobby. 
Nobody  does  here  except  my  father.  He's  an  in- 
curable sentimentalist.  He  lives  an  awfully  lonely 
sort  of  life  in  some  digs  up  in  Alvaston.  His  mind's 
crammed  with  poetry  and  old  music  and  a  lot  of 
ethnological  lumber.  Do  you  know,  he's  about  the 
biggest  authority  in  England  on  prehistoric  man?" 

"I  hadn't  the  least  idea.  I  imagined  he  dreamed 
of  nothing  but  bones  and  soft  parts." 

"You  would.  .  .  .  But  he's  a  wonderful  chap 
really.  Are  you  keen  on  poetry?" 

"Of  course  I  am." 

"There's  no  'of  course'  about  it.  I  don't  imagine 
that  your  friends  Brown  and  Maskew  are  particu- 
larly interested  in  it.  My  guvnor's  by  way  of  being 


SCIENCE  337 

a  poet,  you  know.  Bobby's  awfully  keen  on  his 
work.  Do  you  know  it?" 

Edwin  was  ashamed  to  say  he  did  not. 

"Oh,  I'm  not  in  the  least  surprised,"  said  Boyce. 
"He's  not  appreciated,  you  know,  except  by  other 
poets,  like  this  fellow  Thompson.  I  think  he's 
rather  good,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  quite  apart  from 
the  fact  that  he's  my  father.  If  you'll  come  up 
to  our  place  some  day  I  can  show  you  a  lot  of  in- 
teresting things  in  his  library :  first  editions  and 
things  like  that.  I'd  no  idea  that  you  were  keen 
on  them." 

The  tone  implied  such  an  appreciation  of  Edwin's 
hectic  past  as  typified  by  his  solitary  appearance 
on  the  stage  of  the  Queen's  Theatre  that  he  hastened 
to  deny  the  impeachment.  He  was  tremendously 
pleased  to  have  struck  a  man  like  Boyce,  who  went 
on  to  talk  about  music,  of  which  Edwin  knew  noth- 
ing, and  exuded  an  easy  atmosphere  of  culture,  of 
a  kind  that  he  envied,  without  ever  losing  sight  of 
the  fact  that  Edwin  had  come  to  him  in  rather  a 
questionable  shape.  Edwin  was  thrilled  to  think 
that  he  had  reached  the  threshold  of  a  new  and  ex- 
citing friendship  which  made  his  association  with 
Brown  and  Maskew  seem  commonplace  and  shabby ; 
but  he  was  far  too  shy  to  force  himself  on  Boyce, 
and  so  the  acquaintance  remained  for  many  months 
at  the  exact  stage  in  which  it  had  begun,  and  he 
had  to  be  content  with  the  sudden  insight  that 
Boyce  had  given  him  into  the  hidden,  romantic 
qualities  of  Dr.  Moon. 

Sometimes,  while  he  was  scrubbing  his  hands  with 
carbolic  soap,  the  only  thing  that  really  banished 


338         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

the  smell  of  the  dissecting  room  from  his  fingers, 
he  would  hear  Boyce  discussing  music,  and  particu- 
larly the  work  of  Tschaikowsky,  whose  sixth  sym- 
phony had  just  inflamed  his  imagination,  with  Mr. 
Moon  in  his  gloomy  bunk,  and  he  would  go  on 
washing  his  hands  until  they  were  ridged  and  sod- 
den in  the  hope  of  hearing  what  they  were  saying 
or  even  of  entering  into  their  conversation,  until 
W.G.  would  come  along  and  drag  him  off  to  Joey's, 
asking  him  what  the  hell  he  was  dawdling  about. 
Then  Edwin  would  be  almost  ashamed  of  W.G.'s 
company,  and  hated  himself  for  it,  since  he  knew 
in  his  heart  of  hearts  that,  even  if  he  were  a  Phil- 
istine, W.G.  was  one  of  the  best  and  soundest  fel- 
lows on  earth. 

The  friendship  with  Boyce,  however,  was  bound  to 
come.  It  began  with  the  formation  of  a  small  liter- 
ary society,  that  had  been  originated  by  certain  of 
the  third-year  men  with  whom  Boyce  was  acquaint- 
ed, and  which  held  its  meetings  in  the  newly-opened 
smoking  room  that  adjoined  Dr.  Moon's  chamber 
of  horrors.  Papers  were  read  every  fortnight,  and 
discussions  followed  in  which  Edwin  had  scarcely 
dared  to  take  part,  but  Boyce  was  a  polished  and 
fluent  protagonist.  In  the  end,  when  the  first  en- 
thusiasms of  the  society,  to  which  Brown  and  Mas- 
kew,  naturally  enough,  did  not  belong,  had  been 
spent,  Edwin  was  asked  to  read  a  paper.  He  chose 
for  his  subject  Browne's  Religio  Medici,  a  work 
with  which  this  medical  audience  seemed  strangely 
unacquainted.  The  paper  was  a  success,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  meeting  Boyce  accosted  him  friendlily 
and  asked  him  why  he  had  never  been  up  to  see 


SCIENCE  339 

his  father's  books.  Edwin  withheld  the  obvious 
reply  that  the  invitation  had  not  been  pressed  al- 
though he  had  never  ceased  to  think  of  it;  and 
Boyce  at  once  suggested  that  they  should  go  up 
to  Alvaston  together  that  evening.  "We  can  put 
you  up  for  the  night  if  that  will  be  more  conveni- 
ent," he  said. 

They  walked  up  together  under  the  high,  frosty 
sky,  talking  of  poetry,  of  all  the  beautiful  things 
that  they  had  worshipped  in  common  without  know- 
ing it.  It  seemed  strange  to  Edwin  that  they  should 
have  worked  side  by  side  for  a  couple  of  years  and 
scarcely  spoken  to  each  other  when  all  the  time  they 
had  so  many  delights  that  might  have  been  shared. 
The  unlocking  of  this  closed  and  secret  chamber  of 
his  heart  gave  him  a  strange  feeling  of  elation  and 
made  the  world  suddenly  beautiful.  The  hard  and 
wintry  pavement  seemed  curiously  smooth  and  re- 
silient; the  roadway  ran  in  masterly  and  noble 
curves,  the  black  branches  of  plane-trees  and  labur- 
nums, even  the  pointed  gables  of  the  smug  suburban 
villas  seemed  to  take  on  a  new  and  piercing  beauty 
against  the  starry  sky,  and  they  swung  along  to- 
gether as  triumphant  in  their  ecstasy  of  youth  as 
if  indeed  they  were  treading  on  the  stars. 

"What  a  topping  night,"  said  Boyce.  "God  .  .  . 
look  at  Vega!"  He  waved  his  long  arms  and 
quoted : — 

"Or  search  the  brow  of  eve,  to  catch 
In  opal  depths  the  first  faint  beat 
Of  Vega's  fiery  heart.  .  .  ." 


340         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Whose  is  that?" 

"My  guvnor's.  He's  a  tremendous  chap  on  astron- 
omy." 

"It's  damned  good,"  said  Edwin,  thrilling. 

"Not  bad,  is  it?  He's  a  very  sound  man,  the 
guvnor.  I  think  you'd  like  him." 

But  when  they  reached  the  Boyces'  house  they 
found  that  the  poet  was  not  at  home.  In  place  of 
him  Edwin  was  introduced  to  a  mild  and  beautiful 
figure  with  a  soft  voice  who  turned  out  to  be  Boyce's 
mother.  She  had  her  son's  soft  blue  eyes,  and  spoke 
to  him  with  such  caressing  tenderness  that  Edwin 
Was  seized  with  a  sudden  feeling  of  aching  empti- 
ness for  the  memory  of  his  own  mother,  of  whom, 
so  potent  is  the  anodyne  of  time,  he  had  scarcely 
thought  for  more  than  a  year. 

Boyce  presented  Edwin  with  a  high  social  rec- 
ommendation. "A  friend  of  Denis  Martin's,"  he 
said.  Mrs.  Boyce  smiled  on  him. 

"Look  here,"  said  her  son,  "I'm  afraid  we  can't 
very  well  go  into  the  guvnor's  study.  He  hates  any 
one  invading  it  when  he's  not  there.  Let's  go  up- 
stairs to  my  own  room  and  talk." 

Edwin  had  a  passing  vision  of  the  forbidden 
chamber,  the  flanks  of  a  grand  piano  in  which  a 
reflection  of  firelight  glowed  red,  and  endless  shelves 
of  gilt-lettered  books.  The  rest  of  the  house  seemed 
to  him  rather  untidy,  as  if  it  were  no  more  than  a 
dry  chrysalis  protecting  the  central  beauty  of  the 
poet's  room;  but  he  had  not  time  to  see  much  fol- 
lowing in  the  rear  of  Boyce's  long-legged  progress 
up  the  stairs.  He  found  himself,  at  last,  in  a  small 
attic  with  a  gable  window  that  framed  the  starry 


SCIENCE  341 

sky:  the  kind  of  room  that  satisfied  all  his  own 
ideals  of  comfort  and  seclusion. 

Boyce  was  proud  and  willing  to  exhibit  his  treas- 
ures. They  showed  a  curious  mixture  of  the  school- 
boy, represented  by  photographic  groups  of  cricket 
teams,  glass  cases  of  butterflies,  and  a  tasseled 
Rugby  cap,  and  the  more  mature  intelligence  that 
now  possessed  them.  Edwin  and  he  sat  down  oppo- 
site one  another  in  a  couple  of  easy-chairs,  and 
talked  and  smoked  incessantly  all  that  evening. 
They  spoke  of  Wordsworth,  the  idol  of  Boyce's  liter- 
ary devotions,  of  Browning,  whose  claims  to  poetry 
he  would  not  allow,  and  of  Shenstone,  whose  name 
he  had  never  met  before.  By  this  time  Edwin  was 
getting  rather  ashamed  of  his  early  admiration  for 
Shenstone,  and  the  fact  that  Boyce  had  never  heard 
of  the  Pastoral  Ballad  confirmed  him  in  his  decision 
that  the  author  was  an  acquaintance  whom  he  had 
better  drop.  They  went  on  to  Francis  Thompson — * 
Dr.  Moon's  quotation  from  the  Anthem  of  Earth 
had  sent  Edwin  searching  for  his  works  in  the 
municipal  library — and  he  now  learned  that  this  be- 
wildering genius,  wrho  had  once,  like  him,  been  a 
medical  student,  had  actually  slept  in  the  room 
beneath  his  feet. 

"He  never  qualified,"  said  Boyce  dreamily,  "and 
yet  medicine  is  a  wonderful  thing.  I  should  think 
the  fact  that  the  medical  man  is  always  face  to 
face  with  mortality" — he  pointed  to  a  suspended 
skeleton  in  the  corner — "and  all  the  other  Big  funda- 
mental things  like  birth  and  pain,  ought  to  give 
him  a  sort  of  sense  of  proportion  and  make  him 
sensitive  to  the  beauties  of  life.  Your  friend,  Sir 


342         THE  YQUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Thomas  Browne,  is  an  example.  Then  there's 
Kabelais." 

"There  are  heaps  of  others,"  said  Edwin. 

"Well,  yes.  .  .  .   Keats." 

"Byron  and  Akenside,"  Edwin  supplied  from  the 
eighteenth  century. 

"I  don't  know  the  gentleman,"  said  Boyce. 

"Well,  then,  Goldsmith  and  Crabbe.  Crabbe's 
rather  good,  you  know.  And  Shelley " 

"Shelley?" 

"Yes,  Shelley  walked  a  hospital  when  he  was  in 
London  with  Harriet." 

"I'd  no  idea  of  that,"  said  Boyce,  "but  there's  a 
modern  fellow  that  the  guvnor's  rather  keen  on, 
named  Bridges.  Kobert  Bridges,  who's  a  physi- 
cian." 

"I've  never  heard  of  him." 

"No  .  .  .  he's  not  well  known,  but  I  believe  he's 
pretty  good." 

And  so  they  talked  on,  deciding  that  the  world 
was  ripe  for  great  poetical  achievement,  awed  to 
think  that  perhaps  they  were  living,  without  know- 
ing it,  in  the  beginning  of  a  great  age  of  literature ; 
convinced,  to  a  degree  of  enthusiasm,  of  the  splen- 
dour and  magnanimity  of  the  calling  that  they  had 
adopted;  conscious — thrillingly  conscious — of  the 
fact  that  the  whole  world  lay  before  them  full  of 
undreamed  delights  as  mysterious  and  yet  as  clear 
as  the  wintry  sky. 

Edwin  had  to  run  for  his  train.  He  didn't  mind 
running.  On  a  night  like  this  he  felt  that  violent 
exercise  was  a  mode  of  expressing  the  curious  ela- 
tion that  his  talk  with  Boyce,  and  his  excitement 


SCIENCE  343 

in  the  new  friendship  that  promised  so  many  hours 
of  happiness,  had  given  him.  At  the  gates  of  the 
station  he  paused  to  buy  an  evening  paper.  It  con- 
tained the  news  of  Buller's  defeat  at  Colenso  and 
the  result  of  a  cup-tie  between  North  Bromwich 
Albion  and  Notts  Forest,  but  he  had  no  room  in  his 
mind  for  football  or  for  this  African  war  in  which 
W.G.,  to  the  ruin  of  his  future  finances,  was  itching 
to  enlist.  Edwin's  thoughts  were  of  the  great  names 
and  the  great  works  of  which  he  and  Boyce  had 
been  talking.  The  newspaper  lay  folded  on  his 
knees;  the  flares  of  the  black  country  swept  past 
him  in  the  night,  unseen.  He  was  not  even  aware 
of  the  other  occupants  of  the  carriage  until  he  sud- 
denly found  himself  staring  straight  into  the  eyes 
of  his  opposite,  whom  he  recognised  as  Edward 
Willis,  the  son  of  Walter  Willis  of  the  Great  Mawne 
Furnaces. 

All  Aunt  Laura's  attempts,  heroically  made  in 
the  interests  of  social  advancement,  had  so  far  failed 
to  bring  about  a  friendship  between  these  two. 
Edwin,  on  his  side,  could  never  get  out  of  his  head 
an  unreasonable  prejudice  against  the  Willises,  the 
natural  result  of  Aunt  Laura's  adulation  of  their 
wealth,  and  even  a  knowledge  of  his  own  humble 
origins  had  not  affected  his  traditional  distrust  of 
people  whom  he  regarded  as  flashy  and  self-made. 
In  Edward  Willis  he  found  a  creature  even  more 
shy  than  himself,  and  the  very  fact  that  Mrs.  Willis 
and  Aunt  Laura,  putting  their  heads  together,  had 
decided  to  throw  them  into  each  other's  arms,  was 
enough  to  create  an  atmosphere  of  distrust  and  un- 
easiness. The  sudden  recognition  in  the  railway 


344         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

carriage  was  merely  an  embarrassment.  Edwin 
was  startled  into  saying  "Hallo,"  and  Willis  replied 
in  exactly  the  same  way ;  then  both  of  them  retired 
with  precipitation  to  the  cover  of  their  evening 
newspapers,  from  which  they  listened  to  the  con- 
versation of  a  commercial  traveller  who  was  return- 
ing home  from  London  and  had  all  the  latest  and 
most  authentic  gossip  on  the  South  African  situa- 
tion. 

"Mind  you,"  he  said,  "they're  wily  fellows,  these 
old  Boers ;  we  may  not  be  up  to  their  dirty  tricks : 
I'm  proud  to  say  we  aren'.t.  We  shouldn't  be  Eng- 
lish if  we  were.  But  one  thing,  sir,  you'll  see  in 
the  end,  and  that  is  that  dogged  British  pluck  will 
come  through.  You  mark  my  words." 

Edwin  felt  an  overpowering  impulse  to  say  that 
dogged  British  pluck  pretty  obviously  hadn't  come 
through  at  Colenso;  but  Edward  Willis's  presence 
made  him  far  too  self-conscious  to  commit  himself, 
and  at  the  next  station  the  traveller  and  his  friend 
picked  up  their  bags  and  departed,  breathing  the 
word  "Buller"  as  if  it  were  an  incantation  war- 
ranted to  fortify  and  console.  Edwin  and  Willis 
were  alone. 

When  their  silence  had  become  altogether  too 
ridiculous,  Edwin  plucked  up  his  courage  and  said, 
"Kotten  thing  this  war." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Willis.  "It's  all  right  for 
my  old  man." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Iron.  .  .  .  We're  chock  full  of  Government  work 
for  South  Africa:  gun-carriages  and  rifle  barrels. 
Yon're  doing  medicine,  aren't  you?" 


SCIENCE  345 

"Yes." 

"Lucky  devil.  You're  learning  to  cure  people 
while  I'm  learning  to  make  things  to  kill  them." 

He  stared  out  of  the  window  towards  a  patch  of 
sky  in  which  the  glow  of  his  father's  furnaces  pul- 
sated as  though  it  registered  the  beatings  of  a 
savage,  fiery  heart,  and  relapsed  into  gloomy  si- 
lence. The  tunnel  swallowed  them,  and  in  a  moment 
they  pulled  up  at  Mawne  Hall.  Willis  prepared 
to  go.  "I  say,"  he  said,  "we're  giving  a  dance 
next  week "  and  hesitated. 

"What  for?"  said  Edwin,  for  want  of  something 
better. 

"I  don't  know  .  .  .  unless  it's  to  celebrate  the 
Colenso  casualties.  I  believe  you're  invited.  I  hope 
you'll  come." 

"Thanks,"  said  Edwin.    But  Willis  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  V 

ROMANCE 


MB.  INGLEBY  wanted  to  know  why  he  was  so 
late. 

"I  read  a  paper  at  the  Literary  Society,"  he  said, 
"and  then  went  back  to  Alvaston  with  a  man  named 
Boyce.  He's  a  son  of  Arthur  Boyce." 

"The  auctioneer?"  asked  Mr.  Ingleby. 

"No  .  .  ,  the  poet." 

Mr.  Ingleby's  features  showed  a  faint  anxiety,  as 
though  he  doubted  if  such  an  influence  were 
healthy.  "Well,  I  hope  your  paper  was  a  success," 
he  said. 

"Oh,  I  think  it  went  all  right.    Any  letters?" 

"Yes  .  .  .  two.  Here  they  are."  He  handed  them 
to  Edwin. 

One  of  them  was  the  invitation  from  Mawne.  He 
showed  it  to  his  father. 

"A  dance "  said  Mr.  Ingleby. 

"Yes.  ...    I  suppose  I'd  better  go." 

"Your  Aunt  Laura  told  me  about  it.  If  it  won't 
interfere  with  your  work,  I  don't  see  why  you 
shouldn't." 

"I  haven't  any  proper  clothes.  Evening  dress, 
you  know.* 


ROMANCE  347 

"I  snppose  that  is  quite  necessary,"  said  Mr. 
Ingleby  regretfully. 

Edwin  could  see  that  the  question  of  expense 
was  troubling  his  father's  mind.  He  wished  to 
goodness  he  would  say  so  outright,  instead  of  look- 
ing vaguely  distressed.  It  would  be  so  much  more 
satisfactory.  As  it  was,  he  could  only  feel  indefi- 
nitely in  the  wrong,  as  if  the  dance  were  a  piece 
of  reckless  and  inexcusable  levity  in  which  he  had 
no  right  to  take  a  part.  The  dress  suit,  the  acquisi- 
tion of  which  had  been  anticipated  with  some 
satisfaction,  now  appeared  to  him  in  the  terms  of 
an  accumulation  of  small  change  hardly  earned 
in  his  father's  dusty  shop :  as  the  outcome  of  penny- 
worths of  Epsom  Salts,  sticks  of  liquorice,  or  teeth- 
ing powders.  It  was  humiliating,  and  even  distress- 
ing to  realise  that  every  single  comfort  or  luxury 
that  he  enjoyed — even  the  prime  necessities  of  life, 
had  to  be  accumulated,  literally  scraped  together 
from  this  incredibly  humble  source  and  by  the  per- 
sonal exertions  of  this  simple  and  pathetic  person. 
With  these  conditions  in  his  mind  he  could  not  bear 
accepting  money  from  his  father,  the  weight  of  hi8 
obligation  was  so  overwhelming.  Now  he  found  it 
difficult  to  face  the  idea  of  a  tailor's  bill  that  might 
represent  the  profit  on  at  least  three  days  of  small 
trading  in  the  shop. 

"I  don't  think  I'd  better  go,  father,"  he  said. 

"It  would  be  rather  ungracious  if  you  didn't, 
Edwin,"  his  father  replied.  "It  was  extremely  kind 
of  the  Willises  to  ask  you.  I  think  you'd  better 
go  and  be  measured  to-morrow  by  Mr.  Jones." 

The  idea  of  a  Halesby  tailor's  cut  was  not  inspir- 


348         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ing  and  made  Edwin  inclined  to  press  his  refusal ; 
but  Mr.  Ingleby  went  on  to  explain  that  Mr.  Jones 
owed  him  a  bill  that  he  had  begun  to  look  upon  as 
a  bad  debt,  and  that  Edwin's  dress  suit  would  be 
a  way  of  working  it  off.  This  circumstance  made 
the  order  less  shameful,  except  in  so  far  as  it  ap- 
plied to  the  hateful  penury  of  Mr.  Jones,  whom 
Edwin  remembered  as  a  man  with  a  beard,  as 
shabbily  unlike  a  tailor's  dummy  as  it  was  possible 
for  a  man  to  be.  The  occurrence  was  unfortunate 
in  another  way ;  for  such  an  addition  to  his  ward- 
robe would  almost  certainly  scotch  the  idea  of  ask- 
ing for  a  dress  allowance,  a  plan  which  had  been 
maturing  in  his  brain  for  some  months  and  only 
needed  a  callous  frame  of  mind  for  its  performance. 

Next  evening,  however,  he  went  to  see  Mr.  Jones, 
who  measured  him  obsequiously,  and  assured  him 
that  in  the  happy  days  before  he  was  his  own  mas- 
ter, he  had  actually  cut  morning-coats  for  Sir 
Joseph  Astill,  a  gentleman  who  was  very  difficult 
to  fit  on  account  of  a  'slight  ...  er  ...  fullness  in 
the  figure.  Edwin,  primed  by  the  observations  of 
The  Major  in  To-Day,  was  able  to  tell  Mr. 
Jones  exactly  what  he  wanted,  and  Mr.  Jones's 
manner,  when  he  rubbed  his  hands  over  Edwin's 
instructions,  did  not  suggest  for  a  moment  the  fact 
of  which  Edwin  was  all  the  time  aware :  that  this 
was  not  a  bona-fide  order,  but  a  rather  shabby  way 
of  making  him  pay  a  bill  that  he  had  scamped  for 
a  couple  of  years. 

Stepping  out  of  Mr.  Jones's  melancholy  shop, 
Edwin  thanked  heaven  that  his  father  had  not 
wanted  him  to  follow  in  his  footsteps ;  for  it  seemed 


ROMANCE  349 

to  him  that  the  life  of  a  struggling  tradesman  in  a 
small  town  must  be  the  most  humiliating  on  earth. 
He  was  awfully  sorry  for  all  of  them  as  he  walked 
down  the  street  and  read  their  names  on  the  boards 
above  Jheir  windows.  He  had  never  quite  realised 
their  condition  before  he  smelt  the  particular  odour 
of  lower  middle-class  poverty,  vaguely  suggestive 
of  perambulators,  aspidestras,  and  boiled  mutton, 
that  moved  down  the  linoleum  floored  passage  at 
the  back  of  Mr.  Jones's  shop. 

In  due  course  the  clothes  arrived.  On  the  whole, 
Mr.  Jones  had  not  done  badly ;  but  even  so,  Edwin 
was  still  scarcely  qualified  for  the  business  in  hand. 
He  had  never  learned  to  dance,  and  it  was  neces- 
sary to  acquire  this  accomplishment  in  a  little  more 
than  a  week.  At  first  he  had  decided  to  pull  his 
courage  together  and  approach  Martin,  whose  eligi- 
bility compelled  him  to  be  an  expert  dancing  man ; 
but,  at  the  last  moment,  he  funked  a  confession 
that  would  expose  such  depths  of  social  ignorance, 
and  went  instead  to  a  certain  Professor  Beagle, 
who  advertised  classes  in  dancing  and  deportment 
at  the  hour  of  five  on  Tuesdays,  Thursdays,  and 
Saturdays,  in  the  Queen's  Assembly  Rooms,  next 
door  to  the  theatre  of  the  same  name. 

On  the  next  Tuesday  afternoon  Edwin  presented 
himself  to  Mr.  Beagle  at  the  advertised  hour.  He 
found  him  alone  sitting  on  a  platform  at  the  end 
of  a  long  room  that  smelt  of  dust  and  moth-eaten 
rep  curtains.  When  Edwin  appeared  at  the  other 
end  of  the  room  the  professor  dismounted,  cleared 
his  throat,  clasped  his  hands  in  front  of  him,  and 
made  a  formal  bow.  He  was  a  little  man,  and  very 


350         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

fat.  He  wore  a  navy  blue  coat  that  was  cut  very 
short  at  the  back,  so  that  it  ruckled  up  over  his 
round  haunches,  and  his  collar  rose  so  high  and 
stiff  above  a  white  Ascot  tie,  that  he  was  forced  to 
carry  his  head  tilted  backwards  in  the  direction  of 
his  waxed  moustache.  His  face  was  purple  and  his 
watery  eyes  stared,  whether  as  the  result  of  the 
collar's  asphyxiation  or  his  past  manner  of  life  it 
was  difficult  to  say.  His  feet  were  excessively  small, 
and  his  striped  grey  trousers  tapered  to  the  ankles 
in  such  a  way  that  every  step  he  made  seemed  a 
nice  feat  of  balancing.  He  bowed  to  Edwin,  and 
Edwin  explained  the  urgent  circumstances  of  his 
mission. 

"I  see,"  said  Professor  Beagle.  "I  quite  under- 
stand. You  must  not,  'owever,  expect  me  to  be 
able  to  turn  you  out  as  I  should  wish  to  in  the 
time  at  our  disposal.  Perhaps  you  will  be  good 
enough  not  to  mention  my  name  in  this  connection, 
and  keep  my  instructions,  as  it  were,  dark?" 

Edwin  assured  him  of  secrecy,  and  the  professor 
proceeded  to  ask  him  where  the  dance  was  to  be 
held.  "I  do  not  wish  to  teach  you  anything  that 
will  not  be  useful,"  he  said.  "In  some  circles  the 
Quadrille,  which  I  myself  consider  the  most  digni- 
fied of  dances,  is  still  in  favour.  In  others  the 
Valeta  is  coming  into  vogue.  In  different  planes 
of  society  different  conditions  prevail." 

In  the  end  the  professor  decided  that  Edwin's 
case  called  for  the  Waltz,  the  Lancers,  and  the 
Polka,  with  the  possible  addition  of  the  Pas  de 
Quatre.  He  demonstrated  to  Edwin  the  position 


ROMANCE  351 

in  which  his  feet  should  be  placed,  and  then  invited 
him  to  have  a  try  at  the  waltz. 

"You  will  take  my  harm,  please,  in  the  following 
way  ...  so.  ...  Now,  neither  grarsping  nor 
clarsping,  let  the  lady's  'and  lie  gently  in  yours, 
with  the  fingers  'alf  bent,  and  under  no  circum- 
stances squeeze  the  figger.  So  ..." 

Edwin  placed  his  right  arm  above  the  ruckles  in 
Professor  Beagle's  broad  back:  into  his  left  hand 
a  podgy  fist  descended  like  a  lump  of  moist  dough, 
and  from  the  little  man's  back-tilted,  strangled  head 
a  faint  sound  of  whistling  proceeded  that  raked 
Edwin's  own  nostrils  with  a  cross-fire  of  whisky 
and  cachous.  Then  the  professor  began  to  revolve 
like  a  peg  top,  and  Edwin  felt  himself  swept  round 
by  the  arm  that  lay  upon  his  shoulder,  to  the 
rhythm  of  the  whistled  tune,  which  was  sometimes 
suspended  and  replaced  by:  "Wonn-two-three. 
Wonn-two-three.  Wonn-two-three.  Gen-tly  now. 
Keep-on-the.  Tips-of-your.  WONN-two-three.  Toes." 

In  this  manner  they  circled  the  room  several 
times.  Edwin  was  getting  out  of  breath;  but  the 
professor,  to  whom  this  form  of  exercise  was  so 
usual  as  to  be  negligible,  showed  no  signs  of  fa- 
tigue, except  that  his  eyes  became  a  little  more 
glassy  and  his  cheeks  more  purple.  Indeed,  the 
power  by  which  he  swung  Edwin  round  the  room 
was  a  thing  of  mystery;  for  his  little  feet  did  not 
eeem  to  move,  and  the  upper  part  of  his  body  was 
rigid.  He  moved  like  a  cyclone  or  a  dust-storm,  Ed- 
win thought,  revolving  terrifically  on  its  own  axis. 

"I  am  afraid,"  said  Professor  Beagle  formally  at 
the  end  of  the  first  lesson.  "I  am  afraid  you  have 


352        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

no  great  natural  gift.  It  is  better  that  I  should 
be  candid  with  you.  You  will  need  half  a  dozen 
lessons  at  least  before  you  can  take  your  place 
with  the  young  ladies  in  one  of  my  advanced 
classes." 

Edwin  stuck  to  it.  On  six  more  occasions  he 
visited  the  Assembly  Kooms,  where,  with  exactly 
the  same  formalities,  Mr.  Beagle  received  him. 
With  Mr.  Beagle  in  his  arms,  prevented  by  sheer 
physical  bulk  from,  in  any  circumstances,  squeez- 
ing the  figger,  he  revolved  in  the  vortex  of  the 
waltz.  In  the  Lancers  he  set  to  imaginary  part- 
ners, or  went  "visiting"  with  Mr.  Beagle's  hand 
lying  gently  in  his,  with  the  fingers  'alf  bent.  In 
the  Pas  de  Quatre,  where  the  draught  of  whisky 
and  cachous  was  happily  directed  forwards,  he 
pointed  an  awkward  toe  alongside  Mr.  Beagle's 
tapered  and  elegant  extremity.  In  the  end  the 
professor  pronounced  himself  satisfied  with  him. 

"If  I  were  you,"  he  said,  "I  think  I  should  come 
along  to  my  advanced  class  this  evening  and  fa- 
miliarise yourself  with  the  proximity  of  young 
ladies.  The  fee  is  a  purely  nominal  'alf-crown." 

Edwin  decided  to  do  so,  and  walked  up  in  the 
evening  with  his  patent  leather  pumps  in  his 
pocket.  He  felt  very  shy.  The  place  was  lighted 
with  flaring  gas  jets,  and  in  a  room  marked  Gentle- 
men, that  he  had  always  taken  for  a  lavatory,  a 
number  of  young  men,  who  looked  like  shop  assist- 
ants, were  putting  on  white  kid  gloves.  They  all 
seemed  to  know  one  another  and  to  look  upon 
Edwin  as  an  intruder.  No  one  spoke  to  him,  and 
he  waited  in  the  cloak  room  until  the  last  had  dis- 


ROMANCE  353 

appeared  before  he  dared  to  emerge.  From  the 
room  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  passage  there 
issued  a  breeze  of  concentrated  perfumes,  and  a 
round  of  subdued  titters.  This  room  was  labelled 
"Ladies." 

While  Edwin  stood  waiting  and  wondering  if  he 
dare  risk  an  encounter,  the  door  opposite  opened 
and  a  bevy  of  bloused  figures  appeared.  The  sight 
of  the  first  took  him  by  surprise :  it  was  the  elder 
of  the  two  anaemic  young  ladies  in  the  drapery  who 
travelled  in  the  morning  train  with  him  from 
Halesby.  She  gave  him  a  smile  of  recognition  that 
revealed  her  defective  teeth.  This  prospect  was 
altogether  too  much  for  him.  An  acute  shyness 
drove  him  back  into  the  cloak  room,  and,  as  soon 
as  he  had  taken  off  his  pumps  and  put  on  his  shoes 
again,  he  left  the  Queen's  Assembly  Rooms  and 
bolted  down  Sackville  Row  to  his  train. 


The  Willis's  dance,  to  which  Edwin  had  looked 
forward  with  such  mingled  pleasure  and  anxiety, 
was  destined  to  bring  forth  a  violent  emotional  ex- 
perience. Mr.  Jones  had  not  undergone  the  experi- 
ence of  cutting  for  the  undulant  figure  of  Sir  Joseph 
Kingston  for  nothing.  Apart  from  the  fact  that 
the  sleeves  were  rather  too  long  for  his  arms, 
Edwin's  dress  coat  was  a  success,  and,  as  Aunt 
Laura  benignantly  pointed  out,  it  was  just  as  well 
that  some  allowance  should  be  made  for  future 
growth.  Mr.  Jones  had  been  extremely  anxious 
that  Edwin  should  be  supplied  with  a  magenta  silk 
handkerchief,  an  ornament  which,  he  was  assured, 


354         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

all  the  best  people  wore  stuffed  in  the  corner  of 
their  waistcoats. 

On  this  problem  the  Major  had  never  delivered 
judgment,  so  Edwin  mustered  sufficient  courage  to 
approach  Denis  Martin  for  advice.  Martin  scorn- 
fully told  him  that  the  idea  was  preposterous.  "It'a 
the  kind  of  get-up  that  your  friend  Maskew  would 
adopt,"  he  said.  He  also  impressed  upon  Edwin 
the  fact  that  the  infallible  index  of  a  bounder  in 
evening-dress  was  a  ready-made  tie.  No  doubt  the 
advice  was  excellent;  but  it  let  Edwin  in  for  an 
hour  of  agony  on  the  evening  of  the  dance,  when 
the  tie  refused  to  answer  to  the  Major's  printed  in- 
structions, and  finished  up  by  making  him  look  as 
if  he  had  gone  to  bed  in  his  boots  and  slept  on  it. 

He  had  never  been  to  Mawne  Hall  before.  That 
pretentious  mansion  with  its  castellated  facade 
set  on  a  steep  bank  above  the  valley  of  the  Stour, 
in  which  the  works  that  maintained  it  lay,  was  so 
brightly  lit  upon  this  evening  that  it  glowed  like 
a  lantern  through  the  bare  boughs  of  the  hanging 
wood  beneath.  In  the  gun-room  at  the  side  of  the 
hall  in  which  the  hats  and  coats  of  the  guests  were 
being  received  by  Bassett,  the  Willises'  coachman, 
he  recognised  a  number  of  incredibly  elegant  crea- 
tures of  his  own  sex  with  shining  white  waistcoats, 
pearl  studs,  and  immaculate  ties.  He  knew  scarcely 
any  of  them,  for  they  were  mostly  neighbouring 
ironmasters  or  professional  people  to  whose  society 
the  Willises'  money  had  proved  a  sufficient  introduc- 
tion. Among  them  he  recognised  Sir  Joseph  Kings- 
ton, playing  ducks  and  drakes  with  his  aitches,  and 
wearing,  to  Edwin's  encouragement,  a  flagrantly 


ROMANCE  355 

ready-made  tie.  In  this  particular,  at  any  rate,  he 
was  one  up  on  the  baronet.  He  hoped  that  some 
one  else  would  realise  this  fact.  In  the  middle  of 
these  reflections  he  thought  he  heard  a  voice  that 
he  recognised,  and  turned  to  find  himself  rubbing 
shoulders  with  Griffin.  Edwin  said,  "Good-eve- 
ning." 

"Good  Lord,  Ingleby,  are  you  here?  I  haven't 
seen  you  since  the  pantomime  night.  What  are  you 
doing  here?  Do  you  know  these  people?" 

It  struck  Edwin  that  he  spoke  rather  contemptu- 
ously of  his  hosts. 

"Yes.  ...  I  live  near  here,  you  know,"  he  re- 
plied. "I  didn't  know  the  Willises  were  friends 
of  yours."  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  knew  nothing 
about  the  Willises'  friends;  but  it  sounded  rather 
well. 

"No  ...  I  don't  know  them,"  said  Griffin,  "but 
the  old  man  is  a  business  friend  of  my  uncle's,  and 
apparently  they  were  rather  hard  up  for  men.'?  The 
sound  of  waltz  music  was  heard,  and  Griffin  left 
him  hurriedly.  "See  you  later,"  he  said. 

Edwin,  anxious  not  to  be  left  behind,  pulled  on 
his  gloves  and  split  the  thumb  of  one  of  them.  He 
passed  through  the  hall,  where  his  name  was  an- 
nounced, rather  contemptuously,  as  he  thought,  by 
Hannah,  the  Willises'  tall  and  starchy  servant,  and 
was  received  in  a  manner  that  was  reassuring  and 
homely  by  Mrs;  Willis.  She  spoke  for  a  moment 
of  his  mother,  and  tears  gathered  in  her  rather 
watery  eyes ;  then  she  introduced  him  to  her  small 
daughter  Lilian,  very  self-conscious  in  a  white 
party  frock  with  a  pale  blue  waistband,  and  an- 


356         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

other  dark  girl  with  beautiful  grey  eyes  and  a 
creamy  rather  than  pale  complexion,  who  was 
standing  beside  her.  Miss  Dorothy  Powys,  she  said. 
Edwin,  hedging  for  safety,  booked  a  dance  with 
Lilian,  who  took  the  matter  as  seriously  as  him- 
self. Next,  no  doubt,  he  must  have  a  shot  at  Miss 
Dorothy  Powys,  in  spite  of  the  disturbing  beauty 
of  her  eyes ;  but  when  he  came  to  ask  her  for  a 
dance,  he  saw  that  Griffin  was  talking  to  her. 

"May  I  have  another — number  sixteen?"  Edwin 
heard  him  ask  easily.  She  smiled  and  nodded.  Her 
smile  seemed  to  Edwin  very  beautiful :  so  beautiful, 
indeed,  that  he  couldn't  possibly  bring  himself  to 
approach  her  when  Griffin  turned  away.  It  was 
awfully  silly  of  him,  he  thought. 

The  evening  was  not  exactly  a  success.  He  pol- 
kaed  with  Lilian,  and  took  his  place  in  the  Lancers 
with  several  mature  ladies  to  whom  Mrs.  Willis 
introduced  him.  Luckily  none  of  these  belonged 
to  Halesby,  a  circumstance  that  must  be  attributed 
to  Mrs.  Willis's  tact,  so  that  the  question  of  his 
origin  never  arose.  He  danced  according  to  the 
letter  of  Professor  Beagle's  instructions.  Neither 
grasping  nor  clasping,  he  let  the  ladies'  hands  lie 
gently  in  his  with  the  fingers  half  bent,  and  in  no 
circumstances  did  he  squeeze  the  figger.  What  he 
missed  was  the  terrific  motive  power  that  the  un- 
ladylike Professor  Beagle  had  applied  to  his  revolu- 
tions. It  now  appeared  to  him  that  to  supply  this 
was  the  part  of  the  male ;  and  as  most  of  the  matrons 
with  whom  Mrs.  Willis  supplied  him  were  bulky, 
he  had  his  work  cut  out.  Once,  returning  thor- 
oughly blown  from  one  of  these  adventures  he 


ROMANCE  357 

caught  the  eye  of  Dorothy  Powys;  and  he  thought 
she  smiled.  Could  this  be  true?  He  wondered. 
.  .  .  During  the  greater  part  of  the  evening  when 
he  had  not  been  dancing  he  had  found  himself  fol- 
lowing her  movements  with  his  eyes.  He  had  de- 
cided that  she  must  be  at  least  a  year  or  two  older 
than  himself ;  but  that  didn't  really  matter,  for  she 
seemed  to  him  a  creature  of  such  very  perfect  grace, 
and  her  eyes,  in  the  moment  when  he  caught  them, 
had  been  so  wonderful.  After  the  next  dance,  which 
was  the  one  that  she  had  booked  with  Griffin,  he 
watched  them  disappear  into  the  library. 

It  made  him  feel  sick  with  himself  that  he  hadn't 
taken  the  opportunity  of  his  introduction.  What 
a  damned  fool  he  was!  And  afterwards,  when  he 
watched  her,  she  did  not  smile  at  all,  either  for 
him  or  for  any  one  else.  Indeed,  she  seemed  pale, 
and  anxious,  as  if  something  had  happened  to  up- 
set her.  In  despair  Edwin  wandered  off  into  the 
card-room,  where  he  saw  Lady  Kingston,  who  was 
partnering  Mr.  Willis  at  bridge,  revoke  three  times 
in  two  games,  to  the  intense  annoyance  of  her  hus- 
band. From  the  card-room  he  strolled  on  to  the 
buffet,  where  he  found  Griffin  absorbing  quantities 
of  whisky  and  soda.  He  begged  Edwin  to  join  him ; 
but  Edwin,  who  was  particularly  anxious  to  be- 
have himself,  struck  to  claret-cup. 

"Well,  have  you  struck  any  cuddle?"  said  Griffin 
brutally,  with  his  mouth  full. 

"Any  what?" 

"Cuddle.  .  .  .  Girls.  .  .  .  What  the  devil  do  you 
think  one  comes  to  a  dance  for?" 

"No.  ...   I  haven't,"  said  Edwin. 


358         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Well,  they  are  a  pretty  scratch  lot,"  Griffin  con- 
fessed. "That  Powys  girl's  all  right  though." 

Edwin  blushed  furiously.  He  suddenly  wanted 
to  throw  his  glass  of  claret-cup  at  Griffin's  head. 
Why?  .  .  .  He  calmed  himself. 

"Do  you  know  her?"  he  asked. 

"Never  met  her  before  to-night.  She's  got  a  top- 
ping figure.  She  must  be  pretty  well  connected. 
Lord  Alfred  Powys  is  one  of  their  directors  here." 

"But  you  don't  mean  to  say "  Edwin  began. 

"The  night  is  yet  young,"  said  Griffin,  gulping 
another  whisky.  "God,  there's  number  twelve!  I 
must  hook  it." 

Edwin  wandered  back  to  the  ballroom.  He 
couldn't  keep  away  from  it,  but,  at  the  same  time, 
he  was  anxious  not  to  appear  disengaged,  for  fear 
that  Mrs.  Willis  should  induce  some  other  heavy 
partner  to  abandon  her  arm-chair  for  his  amuse- 
ment. He  hung  about  the  pillars  of  the  folding 
doors  that  led  into  the  supper  room,  just  out  of 
range  of  Mrs.  Willis's  maternal  gaze.  From  this 
point  he  could  watch  the  beautiful  Miss  Powys,  and 
wonder,  with  a  sort  of  bitter  excitement,  exactly 
what  Griffin  had  meant  by  his  suggestions.  Watch- 
ing her,  he  could  not  believe  that  she  could  be  any- 
thing but  graceful  and  beautiful  in  everything  she 
did.  The  band  started  to  play  the  music  for  waltz : 
number  sixteen.  He  remembered  it  was  the  second 
dance  that  Griffin  had  booked  with  her.  For  some 
reason  that  he  couldn't  imagine,  he  felt  that  he 
wanted  to  be  near  when  Griffin  came  for  her :  per- 
haps he  could  tell  her  attitude  towards  him  by 
something  that  she  might  say.  He  went  over  to 


ROMANCE  359 

the  place  where  she  was  sitting  next  to  Mrs.  Willis. 
He  tried  not  to  look  at  her. 

In  a  moment  he  heard  Griffin's  voice.  "Ours,  I 
think."  The  tone  was  a  little  blurred  by  Griffin's 
potations. 

"I  think  you've  made  a  mistake,"  she  said. 

Edwin  turned  round,  and  at  the  same  moment 
she  looked  towards  him.  "Surely  I  am  dancing  this 
with  you,  Mr.  Ingleby." 

"But  look  here,  I'm  sure  these  are  your  initials 
on  my  programme,  Miss  Powys.  Let  me  look  at 
yours." 

He  tried  to  take  the  programme  from  her  fingers, 
but  she  moved  it  away. 

"Really,  we  mustn't  contradict  each  other,  Mr. 
Griffin.  The  dance  is  Mr.  Ingleby's.  Will  you  take 
me,  please?"  she  said  to  Edwin.  ; 

In  an  ecstatic  dream  Edwin  found  himself  walk- 
ing away  with  her  on  his  arm.  It  was  a  miracle, 
an  astounding,  beautiful  miracle.  She  picked  up 
her  skirt  by  the  loop  of  ribbon  with  which  it  was 
suspended  and  looked  him  full  in  the  eyes,  smiling. 
"Shall  we  start?"  she  said. 

They  started.    In  one  fatal  moment  Edwin,  who 
hadn't  been  doing  badly  at  the  beginning  of  the 
evening,  forgot  every  single  precept  that  Professor 
Beagle  had  taught  him. 

"I  say,  what  a  shocking  dancer  you  are,"  she  said 
with  a  laugh. 

"I'm  most  awfully  sorry,  I  only  learnt  this  week." 
Now  that  his  mind  was  diverted  fey  speaking  to  her 
the  steps  came  more  naturally* 


360         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 
"That's  better,"  she  said.  "Who  on  earth  taught 


He  confessed  to  Professor  Beagle,  and  she  ap- 
peared to  be  amused. 

"You  see  you're  dancing  away  from  me  all  the 
time.  Just  as  if  you  were  afraid  of  me.  You  ought 
to  hold  me  closer.  It  upsets  the  what  d'you  call 
it  ...  centre  of  gravity." 

"I  was  told  never  under  any  circumstances  to 
«  -  "  He  couldn't  very  well  repeat  Professor  Bea- 
gle's formula. 

"Now  you're  getting  on  beautifully.  Don't  think 
about  it.  That's  the  idea.  Just  dance." 

The  music  ended.  "Where  would  you  like  to  go?" 
he  asked. 

"Out  into  the  hall,  if  you  don't  mind  ...  on 
the  stairs.  I  want  to  explain  to  you.  It  was  really 
awfully  good  of  you  to  take  me  on." 

"It  was  a  wonderful  piece  of  luck  for  me." 

They  sat  together  on  the  shallow  oak  staircase 
and  she  proceeded  to  tell  him  that  Griffin  had  up- 
set her  in  the  dance  before  by  trying  to  kiss  her 
shoulder.  "I  really  couldn't  stick  a  repetition  of 
that,"  she  said.  "Besides,  I  think  the  man  had 
been  drinking.  So  I  just  pitched  upon  your  poor 
innocence  and  lied  for  all  I  was  worth.  Who  are 
you,  by  the  way?  I  only  just  remembered  your 
name  when  Mrs.  Willis  introduced  us.  She's  rather 
a  dear,  isn't  she?" 

The  music  of  the  next  dance  struck  up.  "Are 
you  dancing?"  Edwin  asked  eagerly. 

"I  don't  know,  I  expect  so.  Just  look  at  my 
programme.  It's  too  dark  for  me  to  see." 


ROMANCE  361 

Edwin  took  the  programme  from  her  fingers.  It 
was  a  thrilling  moment.  In  the  dusk  he  deciphered 
two  initials,  "E.W.,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  that's  only  Edward  Willis.  He's  very  shy 
of  me.  If  you've  nothing  better  to  do  I  think  we'll 
stay  here." 

It  was  so  easy  to  talk  to  her.  To  Edwin,  indeed,  it 
seemed  as  if  he  had  now  become  articulate  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life.  She  did  not  speak  very  much 
of  herself ;  but  she  asked  him  many  questions  about 
his  life  at  school,  where,  he  confided  to  her,  he  had 
first  known  Griffin,  and  then  again  about  his  new 
work  in  North  Bromwich.  And  when  she  did  speak 
her  voice  was  low,  and  her  speech,  to  his  ears,  of 
an  amazing  limpid  purity,  more  beautiful  than  any 
human  speech  he  had  ever  heard.  Edwin  would 
have  liked  to  listen  to  it  for  ever.  He  felt  that 
he  wanted  words  to  describe  its  peculiar  music,  but 
no  words  came  to  him.  He  could  only  remember 
a  line  in  Browning's  Pauline: — 

"Her  voice  was  as  the  voice  of  his  own  soul 
Heard  in  the  calm  of  thought.  .  .  ." 

That  was  the  nearest  he  could  get  to  it;  but  th% 
words,  although  they  expressed  a  little  of  his  ab- 
sorption, did  not  convey  the  musical  qualities  that 
he  wanted  to  describe.  He  tried  to  compare  it  with 
the  tones  of  some  instrument  that  he  knew,  but 
neither  wood-wind  nor  strings  suggested  what  he 
wanted.  No  ...  it  was  a  sound  nearer  to  nature 
than  any  man-made  instrument.  It  was  the  voice 
of  a  Naiad :  the  sound  of  running  water  in  a  clear 
brookland.  And  all  the  time  that  he  listened  to 


362        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

her  he  was  thrillingly  conscious  of  her  physical 
presence.  She  was  sitting  on  the  stair  beneath 
him,  and  fortunately  she  could  not  see  that  he  was 
gazing  at  her  in  the  gloom,  thinking  how  beauti- 
fully shaped  was  the  nape  of  the  neck  from  which 
her  dark  hair  was  drawn  upwards;  overcome  by 
the  loveliness  and  smoothness  of  her  curved  shoul- 
der. 

"I'm  talking  all  the  time,"  he  said,  "and  you're 
saying  nothing.  It's  rather  a  shame  .  .  .  because 
you  speak  so  beautifully." 

"Whatever  do  you  mean?"  For  a  moment  her 
eyes  were  on  his.  He  dared  not  look  at  them.  He 
could  not  answer  her,  for  the  moment  seemed  full 
of  such  an  overpowering  sweetness. 

"Do  tell  me." 

"Oh,  I  only  mean  that  when  you  say  a  thing  like 
that,  it  ...  it  suggests  that  everything  about  you 

is  marvellously  clean  and  clear  and  musical " 

He  paused,  for  he  felt  that  she  might  laugh  at  him. 

"Yes  ...  go  on,"  she  said. 

"Like  water  in  a  hill  country.  It  makes  me  feel 
as  if  I  weren't  within  a  hundred  miles  of  North 
Bromwich." 

She  laughed  softly,  but  not  unkindly. 

"No,  I'm  not  a  bit  like  that.  I'm  really  awfully 
hard  and  worldly — I  wish  I  were  the  least  bit  what 
you  imagine.  You're  most  awfully  young,  aren't 
you?" 

Perhaps  she  did  not  mean  the  word  cruelly,  but 
it  seemed  very  cruel  to  Edwin.  It  was  quite  pos- 
sible that  she  was  a  few  years  older  than  himself, 
if  age  were  to  be  counted  by  years ;  but  in  reality 


ROMANCE  363 

he  knew  that  she  was  beautifully  young,  certainly 
young  enough  to  love  and  to  be  loved. 

"Don't  let's  talk  about  me,"  she  said. 

"But  I  want  to  talk  about  you." 

He  wanted  to  talk  about  nothing  else.  His  head 
was  full  of  words  that  he  wanted  to  throw  before 
her  like  jewels,  but  he  did  not  know  how  much  he 
dared  to  say.  He  knew  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  express  a  hundredth  part  of  his  delight  in  her. 
It  would  be  nearly  as  bad  as  kissing  her  neck  in 
the  manner  of  Griffin,  to  say  that  the  curve  of  it 
sent  him  delirious  with  joy.  It  would  be  indecency 
rather  than  candour  to  say  that  the  faint  scent  of 
her  intoxicated  him.  He  was  silent  with  tremulous 
emotion.  He  wondered  if  she  could  be  conscious 
of  it;  and  he  could  not  guess,  for  she,  too,  did  not 
speak.  From  the  ballroom  they  heard  the  music 
of  another  dance  begin.  Two  shadowy  couples 
emerged  from  the  passage  beneath  them.  A  cur- 
tain of  Indian  beading  made  a  sound  like  dead 
leaves  driven  over  a  dry  pavement  by  the  wind. 
The  intruders'  voices  died  away. 

"I  suppose  we  must  go  too,"  she  said  with  a  sigh. 

"Why  must  you  go?  Are  you  dancing?"  Edwin 
asked,  with  a  catch  in  his  throat, 

"No,  I  don't  think  I  shall  dance  any  more.  I 
was  rather  upset.  It  was  silly  of  me.  But  I  think 
we'd  better  go." 

Edwin  offered  her  his  arm  in  the  best  manner  of 
Professor  Beagle. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice.  For  a 
moment  she  hesitated.  She  was  smiling,  and  her 
eyes  were  wonderful  in  the  gloom.  Their  faces 


364         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

were  level  with  each  other.  And,  suddenly,  amaz- 
ingly, she  kissed  him. 

"I'm  going,"  she  said.  Edwin  tried  to  take  her 
hand  as  she  moved  away  from  him.  For  a  second 
it  lay  in  his,  soft  and  small  and  warm.  Then, 
before  his  arms  had  time  to  follow  the  impulse  of 
his  flaming  brain,  she  had  slipped  away  from  him 
and  passed  into  the  shadow  of  the  passage.  He 
stood  there  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  alone,  his  heart 
thudding  like  a  steam-hammer  in  a  bewildered,  in- 
toxicating elation.  Why  had  she  left  him?  Why? 
.  .  .  unless  it  were  only  a  part  of  her  adorable 
modesty.  That  must  be  the  reason :  and  yet  it  was 
hardly  consistent  with  an  exalted  ideal  of  modesty 
to  kiss  a  young  man,  whom  she  had  only  known 
for  fifteen  minutes,  on  the  lips.  A  new  aspect  of 
the  miracle  presented  itself  to  him.  Was  it  possi- 
ble, after  all,  that  Griffin  had  been  right,  that  she 
was  really  exactly  what  he  had  insinuated,  a  fast 
little  baggage  who  had  determined,  in  a  sudden 
caprice,  to  throw  Griffin  over  and  try  a  new  experi- 
ment? 

He  could  not  believe  it.  Everything  that  he  had 
noticed  and  adored  in  her,  her  grey  eyes,  the  de- 
licious quality  of  her  speech,  her  fragrance,  the  in- 
describable fineness — there  was  no  other  word  for 
it — of  her,  denied  the  possibility.  He  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  realise  that  she  had  gone  in  the  moment  of 
such  an  astounding  revelation.  Such  was  the  way 
of  a  Naiad,  melting  away  out  of  her  sweet  mortality 
in  the  moment  of  possession.  Standing  alone  at 
the  foot  of  the  gloomy  staircase,  listening  in  a 
dream  to  the  luscious  music  of  the  Choristers'  waltz, 


ROMANCE  365 

he  tried  to  recreate  his  dream  out  of  memory.  Noth- 
ing of  her  was  left  but  her  delicate  perfume.  On 
the  stairs  he  saw  a  small  crumpled  muslin  hand- 
kerchief from  which  the  perfume  came.  He  picked 
it  up  with  the  reverence  of  a  pilgrim  touching  a 
relic,  eagerly  triumphant  that  he  had  managed  to 
rescue  a  fragment  of  his  dream.  It  did  not  strike 
him  that  this  tiny  square  of  scented  muslin  was 
presumably  the  instrument  with  which  divinity 
blew  its  nose:  and  indeed  its  dimensions  scarcely 
fitted  it  for  this  material  function.  He  placed  it 
in  the  satin-lined  pocket  of  Mr.  Jones's  creation. 
It  pleased  him  to  think  that  it  lay  near  his  heart. 

This,  of  course,  was  only  the  beginning  of  a 
romance.  No  doubt,  in  the  course  of  the  evening, 
he  would  see  her  again.  Somehow  he  must  per- 
suade her  to  see  him  alone,  and  then  he  would  be 
able  to  do  all  the  magnificently  passionate  things  of 
which  her  flight  had  cheated  him.  He  would  kiss 
her;  he  would  hold  her  exquisiteness  in  his  arms; 
he  would  tell  her  all  the  glorious  things  that  he  had 
been  fool  enough  to  withhold. 

He  went  back  into  the  ballroom.  Nobody  seemed 
to  notice  him  there.  It  pleased  him  to  think  that 
these  ordinary  people  were  too  dull  in  their  per- 
ceptions to  guess  at  the  wonder  in  his  heart.  It 
was  a  secret  that  he  shared  with  only  one  other 
person  in  the  world,  and  that  secret  had  altered 
his  whole  outlook  on  life.  He  was  no  longer  the 
timid  boy,  conscious  of  his  social  disadvantages  and 
of  his  new  dress  clothes,  who  had  entered  the 
Willises'  house  a  couple  of  hours  before,  but  a  man, 
a  lover,  to  whose  passion  the  whole  beauty  of  the 


366        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

world  ministered,  a  creature  miraculously  placed 
beyond  the  reach  of  envy  or  of  scorn.  He  was 
happy  to  wait  patiently  for  the  supreme  moment 
whenjie  should  see  her  again.  And  so  he  waited, 
"mildly  tolerant  of  Griffin,  over  whom  he  had  scored 
so  easily,  of  Edward  Willis,  who  performed  with  a 
set  face  his  penitentiary  programme  of  duty-dances, 
of  Mrs.  Willis,  who  watched  the  joy  of  her  small 
daughter  Lilian  with  the  proud  but  anxious  eyes 
of  a  mother  hen,  of  Mr.  Willis  circulating  among 
his  guests  with  an  expansive  smile,  of  poor  Lady 
Kingston,  still  revoking  automatically  in  the  card- 
room. 

But  Dorothy  Powys  never  returned  to  the  seat 
that  she  had  occupied  under  the  shadow  of  Mrs. 
Willis's  wings.  She  had  told  him  that  she  didn't 
mean  to  dance  any  more,  but  surely  that  didn't 
mean  that  he  was  not  to  see  her  again.  He  grew 
uneasy.  Of  course  she  could  easily  escape  if  she 
wanted  to  do  so,  for  she  was  staying  in  the  house. 
He  wondered  if  he  dared  ask  Mrs.  Willis  what  had 
become  of  her,  but  decided  that  this  would  certainly 
give  him  away. 

Instead  of  doing  this  he  posted  himself  in  a  cor- 
ner from  which  he  could  hear  everything  that  was 
said  in  Mrs.  Willis's  circle.  This  was  not  a  very 
profitable  pursuit,  for  Mrs.  Willis  was  not  an  inter- 
esting talker,  and  the  only  excitement  that  pene- 
trated the  broody  calm  that  surrounded  her  was  the 
arrival  of  her  husband,  very  excited  over  a  telephone 
message,  that  had  no  foundation  in  fact,  announc- 
ing the  relief  of  Lady  smith  by  General  Buller. 
Edwin  was  beginning  to  give  the  business  up  as 


ROMANCE  367 

a  bad  job  when  he  saw  a  tall,  languid  man,  whom 
he  considered  to  be  rather  shabbily  dressed,  ap- 
proach Mrs.  Willis  and  ask  her  what  had  happened 
to  his  niece. 

"Oh,  she  was  here  half  an  hour  ago,"  said  Mrs. 
Willis.  "The  poor  child  told  me  that  she  had  a 
headache  and  was  going  to  bed.  I  told  Hannah 
to  take  her  a  hot  water  bottle.  ...  I  do  hope 
you're  quite  comfortable,  Lord  Alfred,"  she  went 
on.  "It  is  nice,  isn't  it?  to  see  all  these  young  people 
enjoying  themselves.  At  least  it  would  be,  if  one 
didn't  have  to  think  of  all  the  pojor  creatures  in 
South  Africa  being  fired  at  by  these  treacherous 
Boers." 

And  the  tall,  shabby  man  mumbled,  "Yes  .  .  . 
yes,  certainly.  .  .  .  Very,"  in  his  beard. 

It  was  enough  for  Edwin.  He  said  good-bye  to 
Mrs.  Willis,  who  seemed  only  mildly  surprised  at 
his  departure,  and  left  the  house.  There  was  no 
reason  now  why  he  should  stay.  On  the  stone  ter- 
race he  paused,  listening  for  a  moment  to  the 
muted  music  from  within  the  house.  In  the  upper 
stories  only  one  window  was  lighted.  He  could 
see  the  glowing  yellow  pane  beyond  a  bough  of  one 
of  the  cedars  with  which  the  lawn  was  shaded.  He 
wondered  if  that  window  were  hers.  He  would 
like,  he  thought,  to  stay  there  all  night  in  the  black 
shadow  of  the  cedar,  gazing  at  that  window  and 
feeling  that  he  was  near  her.  Later  on,  no  doubt, 
the  light  would  be  extinguished,  and  then  he  would 
imagine  her  lying  there  asleep.  How  beautiful 
she  must  be  when  she  lay  there  sleeping! 

He  sighed,  and  went  on  his  way,  under  the  won- 


368        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

derful  night.  He  climbed  the  steep  slope  of  Mawne 
Bank,  under  the  smouldering  pit-fires,  in  a  dream, 
and  found  himself,  surprised,  beneath  the  walls  of 
the  cherry  orchard  at  the  back  of  Old  Mawne  Hall. 
Inside  the  walls  the  cherry-trees  lay  locked  in  a 
wintry  sleep.  He  stopped,  for  the  steepness  of  the 
hill  had  stolen  his  breath.  He  remembered  a  day 
when  he  walked  there  with  his  mother.  "How 
mother  would  have  loved  her!"  he  thought.  Yes 
.  .  .  she  was  more  wonderful  than  his  mother.  On 
the  day  that  he  remembered,  so  many  years  ago, 
it  had  been  spring.  The  branches  had  been  full  of 
billowy  bloom.  Now,  in  the  wintry  night,  he  felt 
that  spring  was  near :  spring  was  in  his  blood,  stir- 
ring it  to  new  and  passionate  aspirations  as  in  a 
few  months  time  it  would  stir  the  dreamy  sap  of 
the  cherry-trees.  A  strange,  unseasonable  miracle. 
Glorious,  indefinite  words  formed  themselves  in  hia 
mind.  Spring,  with  its  warm,  perfumed  breath, 
triumphing  beautifully  over  the  powers  of  winter 
and  death.  Death  at  Colenso  under  those  tawny 
kopjes.  Love  in  his  heart.  A  sublime,  ecstatic 
muddle.  .  .  .  The  Mawne  furnaces  leapt  into  a 
sudden  flower  of  fire  that  made  the  sky  above  them 
tawny.  Love  was  like  fire  ...  an  exultant  leap- 
ing flame. 

He  did  not  know  where  he  was  going  until  he 
found  himself  at  home  in  his  little  shabby  room 
taking  off  his  dress-suit  and  staring  at  himself  as 
a  stranger  in  the  dusty  mirror.  "Who  am  I?"  he 
thought,  "that  this  should  have  happened  to  me? 
I  do  not  know  myself.  I  am  greater  and  more 
wonderful  than  the  image  that  I  see  in  the  glass." 


ROMANCE  369 

He  placed  his  precious  talisman  of  muslin  under 
his  pillow,  and  wondered  if  he  might  be  blessed 
with  a  dream  of  her.  "She  kissed  me,"  he  thought. 
"She  kissed  my  lips " 

m 

It  was  evident  that  if  he  were  to  see  her  again 
he  must  make  friends  with  Edward  Willis.  He  was 
sorry  that  he  had  not  done  so  before.  For  once 
in  a  way  the  recommendations  of  Aunt  Laura  had 
been  prophetically  right.  His  self-consciousness 
made  it  difficult  for  him  to  do  so,  for  he  felt  certain 
that  this  cold,  calculating  young  man  would  see 
through  him.  For  two  days  he  debated  with  him- 
self on  the  various  ways  in  which  Mawne  might 
be  approached  without  coming  to  any  satisfactory 
conclusion.  On  the  third  he  was  so  lucky  as  to 
meet  his  victim  on  the  Halesby  train.  Willis  did 
not  seem  in  the  least  anxious  to  renew  their  ac- 
quaintance ;  and  it  was  at  the  expense  of  some  awk- 
wardness that  Edwin  managed  to  drag  him  into 
conversation. 

They  talked  a  little  about  the  war,  which  Willis 
seemed  to  view  from  a  remote  and  pessimistic 
angle.  From  that,  by  way  of  Mr.  Willis's  Lady- 
smith  rumour,  they  passed  on  to  a  discussion  of  the 
dance.  Edwin  was  enthusiastic. 

"I'm  glad  you  enjoyed  yourself,"  said  Willis.  "I 
hate  dancing." 

"I  rather  admired  that  Miss  Powys,"  said  Edwin. 

"Dorothy  Powys?  Yes,  she's  a  pretty  girl,  isn't 
she?" 

"Who  is  she?" 


370         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Oh,  she's  a  niece  of  Lord  Alfred  Powys,  one  of 
our  directors.  Lives  with  him,  I  believe.  I  don't 
really  know  her." 

"Isn't  she  staying  with  you?" 

"Oh,  no.  .  .  .  She  only  stayed  at  Mawne  for 
the  night  of  the  dance.  Her  uncle  happened  to 
be  coming  over  for  a  directors'  meeting,  and  the 
governor  asked  him  to  bring  her  along  with  him 
as  there  was  a  dance  on." 

This  was  all  very  discouraging. 

"Where  do  they  live?"  Edwin  asked. 

"Somewhere  over  in  the  Teme  valley,  I  think. 
Lord  Alfred's  a  great  fisherman.  He's  a  nice  chap." 

"And  she  lives  with  him?" 

"Yes.  ...  I  think  he's  sort  of  adopted  her.  But 
I  understand  she's  going  to  India  sometime  next 
month."  . 

"India?  What  on  earth  is  she  going  to  India 
for?" 

"Going  to  be  married  to  some  fellow  in  the  In- 
dian army.  A  major,  I  think  he  is." 

"To  be  married "  said  Edwin. 

And  the  train  pulled  up  at  Mawne  Hall. 

IV 

He  took  it  very  hardly.  On  the  face  of  it,  it 
seemed  that  her  kiss  had  been,  no  more  than  a  piece 
of  mad,  cynical  trifling;  but  his  respect  for  him- 
self— which  was  considerable,  as  became  his  years 
— would  not  allow  him  to  believe  this.  He  decided, 
instead,  that  Dorothy  Powys's  kiss  had  been  the 
symbol  of  a  great  and  noble  passion,  fated,  in  the 
melancholy  manner  of  nearly  every  legendary  lore, 


ROMANCE  371 

to  frustration.  He  was  convinced  ttiat  the  un- 
known major  in  the  Indian  army  would  never  be 
loved ;  that  the  memory  of  that  intense  moment  on 
Mr.  Willis's  back  stairs  would  haunt  his  wife  'for 
ever,  and  temper  with  romance  the  vistas  of  an  un- 
happy marriage.  The  main  result  of  the  incident 
in  Edwin's  case  was  a  spate  of  passionate  but  imita- 
tive verses,  a  new  devotion  to  such  music  as  re- 
pressed his  particular  portion  of  weltschmerz,  and 
an  anxiety  to  confide  the  story,  with  elaborations, 
to  some  sympathetic  friend.  He  turned  it  on  to 
W.G. 

"Well,  W.G.,  what  do  you  think  of  it?"  he  asked, 
when  he  had  finished. 

W.G.  sucked  at  his  pipe  and  smiled  good- 
humouredly. 

"Better  luck  next  time,  old  chap,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   DRESSER 


IN  the  following  June  the  second  professional 
examination  was  held.  On  a  stifling  morning, 
when  the  blue  brick  pavements  of  North  Bromwich 
reflected  a  torrid  heat,  and  a  warm  wind,  blowing 
like  a  sirocco  from  the  black  desert  outside,  swept 
the  streets  with  clouds  of  dust,  Edwin,  Maskew, 
and  W.G.  waited  in  the  cloakroom  outside  the 
Dean's  office  to  see  the  results  of  the  examination 
posted.  Maskew  was  the  only  one  of  the  three 
who  showed  no  signs  of  nervousness;  for  W.G. 
could  never  overcome  the  difficulty  of  expressing 
his  thoughts  on  paper,  and  Edwin  had  passed  ten 
minutes  of  purgatory  with  an  outside  examiner  in 
the  anatomy  viva.  He  knew,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  his  Physiology  had  been  extraordinarily  good, 
and  put  his  faith  in  the  general  impression  of  in- 
telligence that  he  hoped  he  had  created. 

The  porter  came  out  with  the  lists,  and  W.G., 
striding  to  meet  his  fate  like  some  Homeric  hero, 
snatched  the  paper  from  his  hands.  He  went  very 
white  as  he  read  it. 

"Good  God "  he  said.  "Well,  I'm  damned " 

"Rotten  luck  if  you're  down,  W.G.,"  said  Maskew 
sympathetically. 

372 


THE  DRESSER  373 

"Down?  .  .  .  I'm  not  down.    I'm  through." 

He  still  looked  bewildered.  Edwin  took  the 
paper  from  his  trembling  hands.  As  he  had  ex- 
pected Maskew  was  first,  but  he  saw  that  he  him- 
self was  second  on  the  list.  Martin  had  ambled 
through  respectively  somewhere  about  the  middle. 
W.G.  and  Harrop  were  last  and  last  but  one.  He 
pinned  the  list  on  the  notice-board.  It  was  an 
exhilarating  moment  in  which  he  was  conscious  of 
the  herculean,  sweaty  handgrip  of  W.G.,  who  was 
muttering:  "Well,  I'm  damned  if  we  don't  all  de- 
serve it." 

Talking  and  laughing  together,  they  went  out 
to  lunch  at  Joey's  and  caught  the  next  train  down 
to  Evesham,  where  the  coolness  of  the  glassy  Avon 
made  the  June  heat  more  tolerable,  and  in  the  eve- 
ning, blistered  with  rowing  and  sunshine,  they 
came  back  to  North  Bromwich,  dined  together,  and 
afterwards  went  to  a  music-hall.  It  was  wonder- 
ful to  Edwin  to  see  the  physical  elation  of  W.G. 
The  big  man  wanted  to  dance  like  a  child,  and  it 
was  with  difficulty  that  Maskew  restrained  him 
from  smashing  a  plate-glass  window  in  Sackville 
Row.  "You're  a  cold-blooded  swine,  Maskew,"  he 
said  indignantly.  "God,  man,  don't  you  feel  you 
want  to  do  something?  You  must  let  off  steam  in 
some  way,  and  it's  just  as  well  to  do  it  decently." 

Next  morning  the  Dean  sent  a  message  to  Edwin 
and  Maskew,  asking  them  to  call  at  his  office  dur- 
ing the  morning.  They  went  together,  and  were  re* 
ceived  with  his  usual  urbane  politeness. 

"Good-morning,  Mr.  Maskew  .  .  .  Mr.  Ingleby. 
.  .  .  You  had  better  sit  down.  I  am  very  pleased 


374         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

to  see  your  names  at  the  top  of  the  list.  Yes  .  .  . 
very  pleased.  I've  consulted  Dr.  Moon,  and  he  ap- 
proves your  appointment  as  prosectors.  It  is  an 
office  that  you  will  be  very  wise  to  undertake  if 
you  have  any  surgical  ambitions,  and  I  am  very 
pleased  to  offer  it  to  you.  Perhaps  you  will  let 
me  know  to-morrow?  Thank  you,  gentlemen.  .  .  . 
Good-morning." 

"Shall  you  take  it?"  said  Edwin,  as  soon  as  they 
were  outside. 

"Of  course  I  shall.  I'm  rather  keen  on  Anatomy. 
It  only  means  putting  one  back  a  year,  and  it's 
worth  it  a  hundred  times  over,  if  one  gets  the  pri- 
mary Fellowship.  You'll  be  a  fool  if  you  don't  do 
it.  We  should  have  a  topping  time  together.  No 
lectures  .  .  .  just  a  year  of  research  work." 

"I  shall  have  to  think  about  it,"  said  Edwin. 

It  was  the  financial  side  of  the  question  that  had 
to  be  considered.  To  add  another  year  to  a  course 
that  was  already  expensive  in  pursuit  of  an  elusive 
Fellowship  of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons:  was 
it  worth  while?  To  begin  with,  he  might  easily 
fail.  The  primary  examination  was  notoriously 
fluky,  the  results  depending  on  the  individual 
caprices  and  preferences  of  examiners.  Edwin 
knew  very  well  that  better  men  than  himself  had 
failed  in  it.  If,  after  draining  his  father's  pockets 
for  another  year,  he  should  be  ploughed,  the  situa- 
tion would  be  altogether  too  pathetic. 

Anything  that  affected  his  father's  purse  seemed 
to  Edwin,  in  those  days,  a  matter  for  delicacy  and 
shame.  He  hated  to  receive  money  from  him.  It 
was  an  acute  embarrassment  to  see  him  write  a 


THE  DRESSER  375 

cheque.  He  wrote  slowly,  with  a  regular,  formal 
hand,  and  all  the  time  Edwin,  watching  him,  would 
think  how  many  small,  degrading  sales  of  tooth 
paste  and  castor  oil  and  pennyworths  of  camphor 
had  gone  to  the  making  of  that  tenuous  bank-ac- 
count, and  how  easily  and  carelessly  the  painful 
accumulations  would  be  spent.  He  hated  asking 
his  father  for  money,  and  for  this  reason  had  com- 
pelled himself  to  refrain  from  asking  for  the  per- 
fectly reasonable  and  necessary  allowance  that  he 
had  been  wanting  to  settle  for  the  last  year. 

And  so  he  did  not  dare  to  tell  his  father  that  he 
had  been  offered  the  prosectorship  and  the  oppor- 
tunity of  taking  the  Fellowship.  If  he  had  done  so 
he  was  almost  certain  that  Mr.  Ingleby  would  have 
consented,  and  his  father's  sacrifice  would  have 
thrown  such  a  weight  of  obligation  on  him  that  life- 
would  not  have  been  worth  living.  Indeed,  if,  in 
the  end,  he  should  have  failed,  his  shame  would  have 
been  intolerable.  These  reflections  on  the  humility 
and  penury  of  his  father  always  plunged  Edwin  into 
a  debauch  of  sentiment  in  which  he  would  return 
with  the  zeal  of  a  prodigal  to  the  resolutions  that 
he  had  made  at  the  time  of  his  mother's  death. 
They  filled  him  with  a  kind  of  protective  fervour 
that  might  easily  have  been  mistaken  for  love,  but 
was,  in  reality,  an  excuse  for  its  absence.  Still, 
even  if  the  sentiment  harrowed,  it  consoled,  and 
Edwin  was  heroically  elated  by  the  performance 
of  a  sacrifice  that  he  had  not  been  brave  enough 
to  refuse. 

It  pleased  him  also  to  find  that  W.G.  was  thank- 
ful for  his  decision.    "You  see,  it  would  have  been 


376         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

rotten  for  me,"  he  said,  "if  you  and  Maskew  had 
both  been  left  behind.  When  you've  got  into  the 
habit  of  working  with  a  fellow  in  your  first  two 
years,  it's  a  bit  of  a  break  to  have  to  go  on  by 
yourself.  Of  course,  I  should  never  have  the  least 
earthly  chance  of  getting  the  Fellowship,  and  even 
if- 1  had,  I  couldn't  afford  to  waste  a  year  over  it. 
I'm  damned  glad  you're  coming  on  with  me, 
Ingleby." 

The  tribute  was  flattering.  Edwin,  always  rather 
pathetically  anxious  for  friendship,  was  particular- 
ly pleased  to  have  it  offered  so  frankly  by  a  creature 
as  unlike  him  in  every  way  as  W.G.  There  was 
something  stable  and  reliable  about  the  big  man's 
simplicity.  He  felt  that  he  would  be  as  loath  to 
give  offence  to  W.G.  as  to  his  father;  and  though 
he  still  felt  some  indefinite  hankerings  after  the 
atmosphere  of  culture  that  he  would  have  enjoyed 
in  the  society  of  Boyce,  he  couldn't  deny  the  fact 
that  W.G.  was  a  sound  and  splendid  fellow,  and  a 
good  man  to  have  by  his  side  in  an  emergency. 
Together  they  plunged  into  the  new  world  of 
hospital  life. 

n 

Two  general  hospitals  supplied  the  clinical  needs 
of  the  North  Bromwich  Medical  School.  The  older, 
from  which  the  school  had  originated,  was  a  small 
institution,  the  Prince's,  with  which  Edwin  had 
become  acquainted  on -the  occasion  of  his  first  panto- 
night.  It  stood  in  the  upper  and  healthier  part  of 
the  city,  in  the  middle  of  the  slums  that  lie  upon 
the  fringe  of  the  fashionable  suburb  of  Alvaston: 


THE  DRESSER  377 

a  solid  building  of  early  Victorian  red  brick,  with 
a  stone  portico  facing  upon  a  thoroughfare  of  rather 
older  houses  that  had  once  been  reputable  but  had 
now  degenerated  into  theatrical  lodging-houses. 

The  hospital  itself  was  small  enough  to  be  homely, 
and  W.G.  and  Edwin  soon  became  accustomed  to 
its  narrow  entrance  hall,  and  the  lodge  in  which 
porters,  who  already  knew  all  that  was  to  be  known 
about  the  reception  of  casualties,  were  housed. 

Edwin  would  arrive  at  the  hospital  early  in  tho 
morning,  when  no  sign  of  life  was  to  be  seen  in 
the  "professional"  lodgings  sleeping  with  drawn 
blinds  upon  the  other  side  of  the  road.  At  this  time 
of  the  day  the  hospital  porch  smelt  clean  and  anti- 
septic, for  the  stream  of  stinking  humanity  had  not 
yet  begun  to  trickle  through.  He  would  hang  his 
coat  in  the  narrow  passage  that  served  for  cloak- 
room and  lounge  with  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth 
before  the  glass-fronted  notice-boards  on  which  the 
lists  of  operations  for  the  day  were  exhibited,  and 
exchange  greetings  with  the  night  porter  departing 
in  a  state  of  drowsy  ill-temper,  or  the  day-porter 
coming  on  duty  with  a  military  swagger  and  his 
grey  hair  plastered  down  with  vaseline,  from  the 
casualty  department,  and  cold  water. 

Here,  too,  the  members  of  the  consulting  staff 
would  arrive  in  their  frock-coats  and  top-hats :  great 
men,  such  as  Lloyd  Moore,  the  outstanding  surgical 
genius  of  the  Midlands;  old  Beaton,  the  professor 
of  surgery,  with  his  long,  grey  beard,  and  Hartley, 
the  ophthalmologist,  whose  reputation  was  Eu- 
ropean. These  giants  would  pass  on  through  the 
swinging  doors  to  their  wards  or  consulting  rooms, 


378         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

and  on  the  very  stroke  of  nine,  W.G.,  who  was  a 
bad  riser,  and  always  cut  things  fine,  would  plunge 
in,  carrying  with  him  the  strenuous  atmosphere  of 
a  cold  sponge  and  breezy  enthusiasm.  Then  the 
clock  would  strike  nine,  and  they  would  pass  on 
together  arm  in  arm,  into  the  huge,  airy  waiting- 
hall  with  innumerable  benches  set  crosswise  like 
the  pews  in  a  church ;  and,  at  the  same  moment,  the 
military  porter,  who  had  been  marshalling  the 
queue  of  out-patients,  would  release  them,  and  a  be- 
wildering crowd  of  poorly-clad  human  wreckage 
would  drift  in  behind  them,  settling  patiently  into 
the  benches  opposite  the  door  of  the  department 
from  which  they  were  seeking  relief. 

The  work  of  Edwin  and  W.G.  lay  in  the  Casualty 
Department,  a  small  room  full  of  pleasant  morning 
light.  On  one  side  of  it  ran  a  long  counter  with 
shelves  for  bottles,  and  drawers  in  which  plasters, 
dressings,  and  ointments  were  kept.  On  the  other, 
half  a  dozen  chairs  were  ranged  for  the  reception 
of  patients.  The  medical  staff  consisted  of  four 
persons  only:  two  professionals,  a  young  and  en- 
thusiastic surgeon  named  Mather  who  held  the  post 
of  Assistant  Surgeon  to  Out-patients,  and  an  elderly 
sister  who  had  been  on  the  job  for  years,  and  two 
amateurs  in  the  shape  of  Edwin  and  W.G. 

All  of  them  were  clothed  in  white  overalls;  for 
the  work  of  the  casualty  department  was  of  a  dirty 
nature,  and  these  long  garments  also  served  as  some 
protection  from  the  swarming  parasites  that  lived 
upon  the  bodies  of  their  patients.  Edwin,  who  suf- 
fered agonies  of  irritation  from  their  attacks,  also 
armed  himself  with  a  glass-stoppered  bottle  of  ether 


THE  DRESSER  379' 

with  which  he  would  drench  the  seat  of  irritation 
in  the  hopes  of  inflicting  death  or  at  least  uncon- 
sciousness upon  his  tormentors.  i 

Then,  one  by  one,  the  patients  would  file  in,  and 
plant  themselves  upon  the  wooden  chairs :  old  men 
whose  skins  were  foul  with  the  ravages  of  eczema 
and  dirt  combined;  women,  exhausted  in  middle 
age  by  child-bearing,  and  the  accepted  slavery  of 
housework;  sturdy  mechanics  who  had  been  the 
victims  of  some  unavoidable  accident;  pale  young 
women,  made  anxious  for  their  livelihood  by  illness 
that  its  conditions  had  caused,  and,  more  terrible 
than  all,  the  steady  stream  of  wan,  transparent 
children,  the  idols  of  maternal  care,  the  victims  of 
maternal  ignorance. 

In  the  human  wreckage  of  the  casualty  depart- 
ment there  was  no  great  variety;  but  all  of  it  was 
new  to  Edwin  and  W.G.,  and  they  threw  themselves 
into  the  labour  with  enthusiasm,  working  so  hard 
from  nine  o'clock  till  one,  that  their  backs  ached 
and  they  lost  all  sense  of  the  passage  of  time. 
Mather  himself  seemed  to  them  a  prodigy  of  skilful- 
ness,  so  swift  in  his  decisions,  so  certain  and  adroit 
in  the  work  of  his  hands.  Even  the  sister,  whom 
Edwin  had  originally  regarded  as  a  mere  woman, 
aroused  their  admiration  by  the  ease  with  which  she 
worked  and  her  invincible  good  humour.  Edwin 
found  that  she  could  teach  him  more  than  his  male 
superiority  would  ever  have  dreamed. 

Little  by  little  the  astounding  confusion  of  their 
work  began  to  seem  more  simple.  Bandages,  that 
had  seemed  condemned  to  unsightly  ruckles,  or 
liable  to  fall  unrolled  upon  the  dirty  floor,  began  to 


380         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

fold  themselves  in  symmetrical  designs.  Edwin  and 
W.G.  vied  with  one  another  in  the  neatness  of  their 
dressings.  The  smell  of  the  place,  that  had  seemed 
at  first  to  fester  beneath  an  unconvincing  veil  of 
carbolic  and  iodoform,  now  seemed  natural  to  their 
nostrils,  even  pleasant  in  its  familiarity., 

Edwin  began  to  have  time  to  look  about  him, 
to  form  individual  attachments  to  the  patients  who 
came  there  every  day,  to  take  a  particular  interest 
in  cases  that  he  regarded  as  his  own.  Gradually, 
from  the  mass  of  evil-smelling  humanity,  person- 
alities began  to  emerge  and  even  intimacies  that 
were  flattering  because  they  implied  a  trust  in  his 
own  imperfect  skill. 

He  did  not  know  the  names  of  his  patients  any 
more  than  they  knew  his.  To  him  they  were 
grouped  under  conventional  generics:  Daddy, 
Granny,  Tommy,  Polly,  and  the  like.  To  them  he 
was  always  "Doctor";  but  the  thing  that  made 
them  human  and  lovable  to  him  was  the  sense  of 
their  dependence  on  him;  and  the  preference  for 
his  attentions  that  was  sometimes  timidly  ex- 
pressed, gave  him  a  flush  of  gratification  deeper 
than  any  he  had  ever  known.  It  pleased  him  to 
think  that  it  was  true  when  his  patients  told  him 
that  he  dressed  them  more  gently  than  the  other 
workers  in  the  casualty  department.  Such  confi- 
dences almost  convinced  him  that  he  had  found  a 
vocation. 

After  lunch  Edwin  and  W.G.  would  talk  over 
their  cases  together  in  the  lounge  of  the  Dousita. 
Maskew,  who  still  met  them  every  day  at  this 
resort,  found  their  conversation  boring,  and  fell 


THE  DRESSER  381 

back  more  and  more  upon  the  charms  of  Missi 
Wheeler,  who  did.  not  seem  to  have  varied  by  a 
single  hairpin  since  the  day  of  their  first  acquaint- 
ance. And  from  the  discussion  of  their  individual 
cases,  W.G.  would  sometimes  pass  on  to  the  more 
general  questions  that  their  work  aroused. 

"This  life's  worth  living/'  he  would  say.  "When 
you  first  take  up  medicine  and  spend  a  couple  of 
years  over  learning  the  atomic  weights  of  heavy 
metals  or  dissecting  the  stomach  of  an  earthworm, 
you  begin  to  wonder  what  the  devil  you're  getting 
at;  by  Gad,  this  hospital  work  opens  your  eyes. 
You're  doing  something  practical.  What's  more, 
you're  doing  a  job  that  no  professor  of  classics  or 
stinks  could  touch,  and  you  see  the  actual  results 
of  your  treatment  on  your  patients." 

"Thank  God,  I'm  not  one  of  them,  W.G.,"  said 
Maskew  morosely.  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  it's  no 
more  than  when  an  electrical  engineer  finds  a  short 
circuit  and  makes  a  new  connection,  or  when  a 
carpenter  makes  a  job  of  a  rickety  staircase." 

"That's  all  you  know  about  it,  my  friend,"  said 
W.G.  "In  our  job  you're  dealing  with  human  life ; 
you're  relieving  physical  pain — and  sometimes  you 
get  thanked  for  it,  which  is  damned  pleasant.  And 
you've  a  responsibility  too.  If  you  make  a  slip  the 
poor  devil  you're  experimenting  on  is  going  to 
suffer.  You  may  even  kill  him.  And  the  extraordi- 
nary thing  is  that  he  trusts  you  .  .  ." 

To  Edwin  also  that  was  the  most  extraordinary 
thing,  and,  indeed,  the  most  pathetic.  It  showed 
him  that  the  practice  of  medicine  imposed  an 
actual  moral  discipline  on  those  who  followed  it: 


382         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

an  obligation  of  the  most  meticulous  honour  and 
devotion.  But  if  the  discipline  of  practice  de- 
manded much,  it  repaid  a  thousandfold.  He  had  his 
reward  not  only  in  the  thanks  of  the  scabrous  old 
men  whose  varicose  ulcers,  or  "bad  legs/'  as  they 
called  them,  he  dressed,  but  in  the  rarer  conscious- 
ness of  actual  achievement  which  came  to  him  more 
frequently  as  the  scope  of  his  work  extended. 

One  case  in  particular  he  always  remembered, 
principally  because  it  was  the  first  of  the  kind.  She 
was  a  little  Jewish  tailoress  who  laboured  at  piece- 
work in  some  sweater's  den  in  the  rookeries  on  the 
southern  side  of  the  hospital.  She  was  not  beauti- 
ful. Her  face  had  the  peculiar  ivory  pallor,  and 
her  whole  body  the  unhealthy  brittleness,  of  plants 
that  have  sprouted  in  a  cellar.  But  her  voice  was 
soft,  and  her  hands,  the  fingertips  of  which  were 
made  callous  by  the  plucking  of  threads  and  rough 
with  innumerable  needle  pricks,  were  beautifully 
shaped.  A  week  or  so  before  she  had  stabbed  her 
left  forefinger  with  an  infected  needle,  and  lit  a 
focus  of  suppuration  in  the  tendon  sheath.  She 
had  to  live,  poor  thing !  and  so,  for  a  week  she  had 
worked  in  a  state  of  agony,  while  the  tissues  grew 
tense  and  shiny  with  compression,  and  the  pain 
would  not  let  her  sleep.  At  last,  when  she  could 
work  no  longer,  she  had  come  to  the  casualty  de- 
partment, nursing  her  poisoned  hand  in  a  bandana 
handkerchief.  She  had  not  slept  for  four  nights, 
and  was  very  near  to  tears. 

Edwin,  who  saw  that  surgery  was  needed,  showed 
the  case  to  Mather.  The  surgeon  stripped  the  sleeve 
from  her  thin,  transparent  arm  and  showed  him 


THE  DRESSER  383 

the  red  lines  by  which  the  poison  was  tracking  up 
the  lymphatics  towards  the  glands  of  the  axilla  that 
stood  like  blockhouses  in  the  way  of  bacterial  in- 
vasion. 

"Why  didn't  you  come  before?"  he  said,  with  a 
roughness  that  was  not  unkind.  How  many  times 
was  Edwin  to  hear  those  very  words ! 

"I  couldn't,  doctor.    There  was  my  work " 

"There'd  be  no  more  work  for  you,  my  dear,  if 
you  went  on  much  longer,"  said  Mather:  and  then, 
to  Edwin,  "Yes  .  .  .  you'd  better  incise  it  at  once, 
I'm  busy  putting  up  a  fracture.  Straight  down  in 
the  middle  line.  Don't  be  afraid  of  it." 

"Oh,  you're  not  going  to  cut  me,  doctor?"  she 
said.  "Not  till  to-morrow.  .  .  .  Oh,  please  .  .  . 
when  I've  had  a  night's  sleep." 

He  was  very  nervous.  He  assured  her  that  he 
would  give  her  no  pain;  but  while  he  left  her  to 
fetch  the  scalpel  and  the  dressings  he  heard  a  queer 
drumming  noise  and  turned  to  see  that  it  was  made 
by  the  heels  of  his  patient  trembling  on  the  floor. 
He  was  nearly  as  tremulous  himself. 

"I  promise  you  I  won't  hurt  you,"  he  said,  and 
she  returned  him  a  painful  smile.  It  was  a  look 
he  knew.  "Just  like  the  eyes  of  a  dog,"  W.G.  had 
said. 

He  sprayed  the  finger  with  ethyl  chloride,  that 
froze  into  a  crust  like  hoarfrost  on  the  fingertip  and 
blanched  the  skin  that  was  already  pale  with  the 
pressure  inside  it.  All  the  time  the  girl  was  mak- 
ing little  nervous  movements,  and  sometimes  her 
heels  began  to  drum  again  until  she  tucked  them 
Tinder  the  bar  of  her  chair. 


384         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"I'm  sorry,  doctor,  I  can't  help  it,"  she  said. 

Then,  with  his  scalpel,  he  made  a  clean  longi- 
tudinal cut  through  the  tense  skin  down  to  the 
bone  of  the  phalanx.  She  gave  a  start  and  clutched 
his  hand  so  that  he  nearly  gave  it  up.  "I've  got  to 
do  it/'  he  thought.  "I  must  do  it."  It  was  the  first 
time  that  he  had  ever  cut  with  a  knife  into  living 
flesh.  A  strange  sensation.  .  .  .  But  the  bead  of 
matter  that  escaped  showed  him  that  he  had  got 
to  the  root  of  the  trouble,  and  the  sight  of  it  filled 
him  with  a  new  and  curious  exultation. 

It  was  a  long  business,  for  the  neglected  pressure 
had  impaired  the  vitality  of  the  bone  and  the  wound 
would  not  heal  until  the  dead  spicules  had  been 
separated  from  the  living  tissue.  Edwin  dressed 
the  finger  every  morning.  The  patient  would  have 
been  a  poor  subject  at  the  best  of  times,  and  he 
knew  that  the  fact  that  she  was  now  out  of  work 
probably  meant  that  she  was  starving.  It  would 
have  been  easy  for  him  to  tell  her  that  she  must 
have  plenty  of  nourishing  food;  but  he  knew  well 
enough  that  the  words  would  have  been  no  more 
than  a  mockery.  In  the  hospital  wards,  he  reflected, 
she  might  have  been  well  fed;  but  the  wards  at 
the  Prince's  were  full  of  more  serious  cases  who 
could  not  walk  to  the  hospital  to  receive  their  treat- 
ment. On  occasions  of  this  kind  he  wished  that 
he  were  a  millionaire:  an  extravagant  idea — for 
doctors  are  never  millionaires.  He  could  only  ram 
iron  into  her  and  dress  her  and  try  to  get  her  well 
so  that  she  might  travel  back  around  the  vicious- 
circle  to  the  conditions  that  had  been  responsible 
for  her  illness.  It  seemed  to  him  that  people  who 


THE  DRESSER  385 

were  not  doctors  could  never  really  know  anything 
about  life. 

In  a  little  while  there  were  others,  many  of  them, 
in  whose  cases  he  knew  that  he  had  been  privileged 
to  effect  some  positive  good :  notably  an  old  woman, 
always  dressed  in  black  and  loaded  with  crepe  as 
though  she  were  attending  her  own  funeral,  who 
had  fractured  her  wrist  by  slipping  on  an  icy  pave- 
ment one  evening  when  she  was  fetching  her  hus- 
band's supper  beer,  an  office  that  she  appeared  far 
too  ladylike  ever  to  have  performed.  She  had  put 
out  her  hand  to  save  herself,  and  a  Colles  fracture 
of  the  ulna  and  radius  had  been  the  result. 

She  called  Edwin  "My  dear,"  and  the  first  thing 
that  he  noticed  about  her  was  the  amazing  cleanli- 
ness of  her  withered  skin.  He  remembered  the 
fortitude  that  she  had  shown  when  first  he  reduced 
the  fracture ;  how  her  bony  fingers,  on  one  of  which 
was  a  wedding-ring  worn  very  thin,  had  clasped  his. 
For  some  curious  reason  he  felt  very  tenderly  to- 
wards her,  and  when  the  bones  were  set  and  he  had 
passed  her  on  to  the  massage  department,  he  felt 
quite  lost  without  her  early  "Good-morning !"  That 
was  another  strange  thing  about  medical  practice: 
the  way  in  which  people  with  whom  he  was  thrown 
into  an  intimate  sympathy  for  a  few  days  passed 
completely  and  irrevocably  out  of  his  life. 

W.G.  and  Edwin  found  their  experience  so  in- 
triguing that  they  took  turns  to  visit  the  casualty 
department  in  the  afternoons  when  the  work  was 
light,  and  the  absence  of  Mather  gave  them  a  free 
hand  in  the  performance  of  minor  surgery.  At 
this  time  of  the  day  the  work  of  the  department 


386         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

was  more  suggestive  of  its  name;  for  the  people 
who  came  there  were  nearly  all  the  victims  of  sud- 
den illness  or  accident  that  needed  diagnosis  and 
immediate  treatment.  It  pleased  Edwin  to  deal 
with  these  off  his  own  bat,  and  he  spent  the  long 
afternoons  that  were  free  from  lectures  in  suturing 
wounds,  removing  brass  filings  or  specks  of  cinders 
from  eyes,  extracting  teeth,  gaining  confidence 
every  day  and  suffering  the  mingled  emotions  of 
pain,  pity,  and  violent  indignation.  Not  infre- 
quently the  last  .  .  .  for  he  saw  so  much  suffering 
that  might  easily  have  been  prevented  but  for  the 
ignorance  or  callousness  of  humanity.  These  things 
aroused  his  anger;  but  he  soon  realised  that  anger 
was  the  one  emotion  that  a  doctor  is  most  wise  to 
suppress. 

Sometimes  a  woman  from  one  of  the  neighbour- 
ing slums  would  enter  in  a  state  of  hollow-eyed 
terror,  carrying  in  her  shawl  a  child  that  was 
obviously  dying  from  broncho-pneumonia. 

"Why,  in  the  name  of  Heaven,  didn't  you  come 
up  before?"  he  would  ask  indignantly. 

"The  neighbours  said  it  was  only  the  teething, 
doctor,"  she  would  reply. 

Edwin  would  try  to  suppress  an  inclination  to 
damn  the  neighbours  upside  down.  "Surely  you 
could  see  the  child  was  ill?"  he  would  say. 

"Yes,  doctor,  but  how  could  I  get  away?  There's 
seven  of  them,  bless  their  hearts,  and  me  going 
with  another,  and  the  house  looking  like  a  pig- 
sty, and  the  master's  dinner  to  cook.  I  haven't  got 
no  time  to  spare  for  hospitals." 

And  he  knew  that  she  spoke  the  truth,  contenting 


THE  DRESSER  387 

himself,  as  he  filled  in  the  form  for  admission  to 
the  children's  ward,  with  telling  her  that  the  diet 
of  bread-crusts  soaked  in  beer,  which  she  had  been 
giving  it,  was  not  ideal  for  a  baby  eight  months 
old. 

"Take  the  baby  along  to  ward  fourteen,"  he  would 
say,  "they'll  do  what  they  can  for  it,"  and  be  met, 
as  likely  as  not,  with  a  volume  of  tigerish  abuse 
from  a  wild-eyed  woman  who  swore  that  if  her 
baby  was  going  to  die  it  wasn't  going  to  do  so  in 
any  bloody  hospital,  was  it,  my  pretty? — the  last 
words  sinking  to  a  maternal  coo  and  being  accom- 
panied by  a  paroxysm  of  kisses  on  the  baby's  lips 
that  were  already  blue  for  want  of  breath.  And 
then  Edwin  would  control  his  indignation  and  re- 
sort to  wheedling  and  coaxing,  feeling  that  if  the 
baby  were  left  to  the  mercies  of  maternal  instinct, 
he  himself  wrould  be  little  better  than  a  murderer. 

Indeed,  the  responsibilities  of  his  calling  and  its 
immense  obligations  impressed  themselves  on  him 
more  deeply  every  day.  He  saw  that  this  profession 
of  medicine  was  not  to  be  taken  lightly;  that  his 
work  in  it  would  be -useless,  almost  impious,  if  it 
were  not  religiously  performed.  Even  from  the 
earliest  ages  this  had  been  so.  One  day,  idly  read- 
ing a  back  number  of  the  Lancet,  he  came  upon  a 
historical  article  that  contained  a  translation  of 
the  Hippocratic  oath,  which  had  been  administered 
to  all  those  who  were  initiated  in  the  mysteries  of 
medicine  two  thousand  years  ago.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  it  might  have  been  written  on  the  day 
that  he  read  it.  Thus  it  ran : — 


388         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"I  swear  by  Apollo  the  Healer,  and  ^Esculapius, 
and  Hygieia,  and  Panacea ;  and  I  call  all  Gods  and 
Goddesses  to  witness,  that  I  will,  according  to  my 
power  and  judgment,  make  good  this  oath  and 
covenant  that  I  sign.  I  will  use  all  ways  of  medical 
treatment  that  shall  be  for  the  advantage  of  the 
sufferers,  according  to  my  power  and  judgment, 
and  will  protect  them  from  injury  and  injustice. 
Nor  will  I  give  to  any  man,  though  I  be  asked  to 
give  it,  any  deadly  drug,  nor  will  I  consent  that  it 
should  be  given.  But  purely  and  holily  I  will  keep 
guard  over  my  life  and  my  art. 

"And  into  whatever  houses  I  enter,  I  will  enter 
into  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  sufferers,  departing 
from  all  wilful  injustice  and  destructiveness,  and 
all  lustful  works,  on  bodies,  male  and  female,  free 
and  slaves.  And  whatever  in  practice  I  see  or  hear, 
or  even  outside  practice,  which  it  is  not  right  should 
be  told  abroad,  I  will  be  silent,  counting  as  unsaid 
what  was  said. 

"Therefore  to  me,  accomplishing  this  oath  and 
not  confounding  it,  may  there  be  enjoyment  of  life 
and  art,  being  in  good  repute  among  all  men  for 
ever  and  ever:  but  to  me,  transgressing  and 
perjured,,  the  contrary." 

Fine  reading,  Edwin  thought.  .  .  .  The  only 
deity  of  whom  hef  was  not  quite  certain  was 
Panacea.  Obviously  the  classical  representative  of 
Mother  Siegel.  It  seemed  to  him  a  pity  that  the 
modern  student  was  not  bound  by  the  formulae  of 
the  Physician  of  Cos. 

His  three  months  in  the  casualty  department 


THE  DRESSER  389 

passed  away  quickly,  and  in  the  spring  of  the  year 
he  found  himself  attached  as  dresser  to  that 
startling  surgeon,  Lloyd  Moore.  The  appointment, 
as  he  soon  realised,  was  a  privilege;  for  Lloyd 
Moore  was  the  one  man  of  unquestionable  genius  in 
the  North  Bromwich  Medical  School.  At  first  the 
experience  was  rather  alarming,  for  the  vagaries  of 
his  chief,  and,  not  least,  his  genial  vulgarity,  seemed 
at  first  as  though  they  were  going  to  destroy  the 
pretty  edifice  of  ideals  that  Edwin  had  constructed 
on  the  basis  of  the  Hippocratic  oath  and  his  ex- 
perience in  the  casualty  department.  Lloyd  Moore, 
to  begin  with,  was  no  respecter  of  persons,  ancient 
or  modern;  his  wit  was  ruthless  and  occasionally 
bitter,  as  Edwin  had  reason  to  know ;  his  language, 
particularly  in  moments  of  stress,  was  unvarnished 
and  foul,  even  in  the  presence  of  wromen. 

On  the  surface,  indeed,  he  seemed  a  person  whom 
Hippocrates  would  have  regarded  as  undignified 
and  improper.-  Sometimes  in  the  out-patient  de- 
partment Edwin  would  blush  for  his  chief's  violence 
and  cruelty,  but,  in  the  end,  all  these  things  were 
forgotten  in  the  realisation  that  the  little  man  was 
a  great  surgical  genius,  to  whom  diagnosis  was  a 
matter  of  inspired,  unerring  instinct,  and  practice 
a  gift  of  the  gods.  Nor  were  his  virtues  merely 
professional.  L.M.  (as  he  was  always  called)  was 
a  man  of  the  people,  one  who  had  fought  his  way 
inch  by  inch  into  the  honourable  position  that  he 
held  as  the  greatest  of  surgeons  and  the  wealthiest 
practitioner  in  the  Midlands.  The  unpaid  work  of 
the  hospital  absorbed  him  even  to  the  neglect  of 
private  practice,  and  every  doctor  in  the  district 


390         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

knew  that  he  could  count  on  the  very  best  of  the 
great  man's  skill  for  a  nominal  fee  in  any  case  of 
emergency.  Far  more  than  any  consultant  in  the 
Midlands,  he  was  regarded  as  the  general  practi- 
tioner's friend,  and,  as  a  result  of  this  confidence, 
all  the  most  interesting  surgical  material  of  the 
district  found  its  way  into  his  clinic. 

In  a  little  time  Edwin  became  wholly  subject  to 
the  spell  of  this  amazing  personality,  until  it  seemed 
strange  to  him  that  he  could  ever  have  doubted 
the  propriety  of  anything  that  L.M.  said  or  did. 
He  wondered  more  and  more  at  the  man's  titanic 
energy,  for  Lloyd  Moore  was  a  little  fellow,  so  pale 
that  he  always  looked  as  if  he  were  fainting  with 
exhaustion.  His  patients  also  adored  him,  and 
more  than  once  Edwin  was  told  in  the  wards  by 
elderly  female  admirers  that  Mr.  Lloyd  Moore  was 
the  very  image  of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  the  days  of  the  casualty  department  Edwin's 
main  concern  had  been  with  the  alleviation  of  im- 
mediate pain.  The  problem  of  the  wards  was 
graver,  being  no  less  than  the  balance  of  life  and 
death.  In  the  achievements  of  L.M.'s  scalpel,  he 
saw  the  highest  attainment  of  which  surgery  was 
capable.  In  a  hundred  cases  offhand  he  could  say 
to  himself  that  but  for  Lloyd  Moore's  skill  the  pa- 
tient would  have  died,  and  when  he  saw  the  fragile 
figure  of  the  surgeon  with  his  pale  face  and  burn- 
ing eyes  enter  the  theatre,  Edwin  would  think  of 
him  as  a  man  worn  thin  by  wrestling  with  death 
*  .  .  death  in  its  most  cruel  and  invincible  moods. 

But  in  the  theatre,  at  the  time  of  one  of  L.M.'s 
Emergency  operations,  there  was  no  time  for  dream- 


THE  DRESSER  391 

ing  or  for  romantic  speculation.  An  atmosphere 
of  materialism,  of  pure,  sublimated  action  filled  the 
room  as  surely  as  the  sweet  fumes  of  chloroform 
and  ether.  Everything  about  the  place  was  clean 
and  bright  and  hard,  from  the  frosted  glass  of  the 
roof  and  the  porcelain  walls  to  the  shining  instru- 
ments that  lay  newly  sterilised  in  trays  on  the 
glass-topped  tables.  Even  the  theatre  sister,  in 
her  white  overall,  gave  an  impression  of  clean, 
bright  hardness.  Indeed,  in  this  white  temple  of 
sterility,  everything  was  clean  except  those  parts 
of  the  patient's  body  that  the  nurses  in  the  wards 
had  not  scrubbed  with  nail-brushes  and  shaved  and 
painted  with  iodine,  and  the  language  of  L.M., 
whose  physical  lustrations  had  no  effect  whatever 
on  his  vocabulary. 

Even  L.M.'s  language  was  at  times  a  relief,  for  it 
seemed  to  be  the  only  human  thing  that  ever  gained 
admission  to  the  theatre,  and  the  sister  was  so  in- 
human as  never  to  take  the  least  notice  of  it.  Not 
a  smile,  nor  even  the  least  compression  of  the  lips 
marked  her  appreciation  or  disapproval  of  the 
surgeon's  sallies.  Physically  she  was  an  extremely 
attractive  woman,  with  very  beautiful  eyes  that 
were  not  without  their  effect  upon  Edwin ;  but  the 
influence  of  the  place  robbed  her  of  any  sexual  at- 
tributes, so  that  she  became  no  more  than  a 
monosyllabic  automaton,  intent,  devoted,  faultlessly 
prepared  for  any  of  the  desperate  emergencies  of 
surgery.  From  the  first  Edwin  had  noticed  that 
the  more  embarrassing  physical  details  of  the  pa- 
tients had  no  disturbing  effect  upon  her  modesty. 
He  soon  saw  that  if  she  had  permitted  herself  for 


392         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

one  moment  to  be  a  woman  she  could  not  have  re- 
mained the  wholly  admirable  theatre-sister  that  she 
was.  "But  I  can't  imagine,"  he  thought,  "how  any 
man  could  marry  a  nurse " 

From  such  reflections  he  would  be  roused  by  the 
anaesthetist's  laconic  "Ready."  On  one  side  of  the 
^operating  table  he  would  stand,  and  on  the  other 
L.M.  with  the  theatre-sister  ready  at  'his  elbow. 
The  surgeon  would  pick  up  a  scalpel  carelessly,  as 
a  man  picks  up  a  pencil  to  write,  and  then,  ap- 
parently with  as  little  thought,  he  would  make  a 
long,  clean  incision  through  the  skin  and  superficial 
fatty  tissues  of  the  abdomen,  putting  his  head  on 
one  side  to  look  at  it  like  an  artist  whose  pencil 
has  described  a  beautiful  curve.  Then,  sharply: 
"Swabs  .  .  .  Ingleby,  what  the  hell  do  you  think 
you're  doing?"  And  Edwin  would  press  a  swab 
of  gauze  to  the  incision  to  absorb  the  blood  that 
escaped  from  the  subcutaneous  veins. 

"Eight." 

Layer  by  layer  the  various  planes  of  fascia, 
muscle,  and  peritoneum  would  be  opened  and  neatly 
laid  aside,  every  one  of  them  slipped  in  its  own 
pair  of  artery  forceps.  Then,  from  the  gaping 
wound,  that  L.M.  probed  with  his  thin  finger,  a 
sickening  odour  would  rise  .  .  .  one  that  Edwin 
never  remembered  apart  from  the  other  sickening 
smell  of  ether. 

"Pus.  ...  I  thought  so,"  L.M.  would  say.  "The 
brute's  perforated,  damn  him."  And  Edwin  knew 
that  yet  another  creature  had  been  snatched  out 
of  the  jaws  of  death. 

In  the  hands  of  L.M.  surgery  seemed  so  simple. 


THE  DRESSER  393 

His  scalpel — for  he  used  fewer  instruments  than 
any  surgeon  Edwin  ever  knew — was  a  part  of  him 
in  the  same  way  as  a  perfect  rider  is  part  of  his 
horse.  There  was  never  any  hesitation  in  his 
surgery,  never  any  room  for  doubt ;  everything  was 
straightforward  and  self-evident  from  the  first  in- 
cision to  the  last  suture;  and  he  was  at  his  best 
when  he  threw  into  it  a  touch  of  bravura,  rejoicing 
in  the  amazing  virtuosity  of  his  own  technique  and 
playing,  a  little,  to  the  gallery. 

"There  you  are,"  he  would  say,  "you  see  there's 
nothing  in  it.  Nothing  at  all  but  a  working  knowl- 
edge of  anatomy  and  a  dollop  of  common-sense. 
That's  all  surgery.  Why  on  earth  should  they  pay 
me  a  hundred  guineas  for  doing  a  simple  thing  like 
that?  There's  nothing  in  it,  is  there?" 

Edwin  knew  that  there  was  a  great  deal  in  it: 
genius,  and  more  than  genius:  a  life  of  devotion 
to  one  end  only;  infinite  physical  strains;  cruel 
disappointments;  harrowing  mistakes.  For  even 
L.M.  had  made  mistakes  in  his  time ;  and  a  doctor 
pays  for  his  mistakes  more  heavily  than  any  other 
man. 

Apart  from  the  performance  of  emergency  opera- 
tions, that  might  take  place  at  any  hour  of  the 
day  or  night,  the  surgeon  only  occupied  his  theatre 
on  three  mornings  in  the  week;  and  the  greater 
part  of  Edwin's  time  was  devoted  to  the  work  of 
the  wards.  Here  he  performed  his  proper  function 
as  dresser,  being,  under  the  house-surgeon,  respon- 
sible for  the  after-treatment  of  the  patients  on  whom 
L.M.  had  operated.  This  business  kept  his  hands 
full.  Nearly  all  the  acute  surgical  cases  needed 


394         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

dressing  daily,  and  some  more  than  once  a  day.  It 
was  usual  for  the  dresser  to  leave  the  second  dress- 
ing to  be  done  by  the  house-surgeon  on  his  evening 
round,  or  by  the  sister  of  the  ward,  who  would 
doubtless  have  performed  it  as  well  as  either  of 
them ;  but  nothing  could  induce  Edwin,  in  his  new- 
est enthusiasm,  to  drop  a  case  into  which  his  teeth 
were  fixed. 

The  morning  visits  were  ceremonial.  The  great 
floors  of  the  wards  shone  like  the  faces  of  such 
patients  as  were  fit  to  be  scrubbed  with  a  soapy 
flannel ;  the  rows  of  beds  were  set  with  a  mathe- 
matical correctness,  the  sheets  turned  down  at 
exactly  the  same  level;  the  water  in  the  jugs  stood 
hot,  awaiting  the  dresser's  hands,  his  towel  lay 
folded  in  the  jug's  mouth  ;  a  probationer,  pink-faced 
and  red-armed,  stood  waiting  to  do  his  professional 
pleasure ;  morning  sunlight  flickered  over  the  leaves 
of  aspidestras  that  flourished  in  pots  on  the  central 
tables,  and  on  the  trays  of  dressing  instruments 
that  were  ready  for  his  hand. 

At  ten  o'clock  precisely,  Edwin,  an  older  and 
more  experienced  Edwin  whose  shaves  were  no 
longer  a  luxury,  whose  clothes  no  longer  looked  as 
if  he  were  in  the  act  of  growing  out  of  them,  and 
whose  collars  were  adorned  by  the  very  latest  thing 
in  ties,  would  enter  the  ward,  roll  up  his  shirt- 
sleeves, and  be  helped  on  with  a  white  overall  by 
the  obedient  probationer — whose  main  function  in 
life  this  office  seemed  to  be — or  sometimes  by  the 
sister  herself.  The  new  Edwin,  product  of  six 
months  in  hospital,  was  no  longer  afraid  of  these 
attentions  because  they  happened  to  be  performed 


THE  DRESSER  395 

by  women.  In  a  mild  way  he  was  even  an  amateur 
of  the  physical  points  exhibited  by  the  genus  pro- 
bationer, and  had  arrived  at  a  touching  intimacy 
with  the  sisters,  who  found  in  him  a  clean  and 
pleasant  mannered  youth,  and  on  occasion  hauled 
him  out  of  the  difficulties  into  which  his  inexperi- 
ence landed  him.  Thus  attired,  he  would  begin  his 
progress  of  the  ward,  followed,  wherever  he  went, 
by  the  females  who  had  robed  him,  the  junior  push- 
ing before  her  the  wheeled  glass  table  on  which  the 
dressings  and  instruments  were  kept,  For  the  time 
being  he  was,  or  imagined  himself  to  be,  the  most 
important  person  in  the  ward,  until,  perhaps,  the 
house-surgeon  entered,  and  his  attendants  forsook 
their  allegiance  and  hastened  to  put  themselves  at 
the  service  of  this  superior  person. 

In  the  duties  of  the  wards  Edwin  became  far 
more  familiar  with  his  cases  than  in  the  casualty 
department.  The  work  was  less  hurried,  and  the 
patients  themselves  were  less  fully  armed  with  the 
conventional  social  gestures  by  which  men  and 
women  protect  and  hide  themselves.  They  lay  in 
bed  helpless,  dependent  on  the  hospital  staff  for 
every  necessity  and  amusement;  and  the  stress  of 
physical  pain  or  the  catastrophe  of  a  major  opera- 
tion had  generally  shaken  from  them  the  little 
superficialities  that  they  had  gathered  to  them- 
selves in  the  course  of  everyday  life.  Edwin  noticed 
that,  even  at  their  worst,  the  women  were  hardly 
ever  too  ill  to  be  a  little  concerned  for  their  per- 
sonal appearance,  and,  as  they  grew  better,  the 
patients  of  both  sexes  would  make  an  heroic  attempt 
to  appear  as  they  wished  themselves  to  seem  rather 


396         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

than  as  they  were;  but  he  realised,  none  the  less, 
that  the  doctor  gets  nearer  to  the  bed-rock  of  human 
personality  than  any  other  man  who  ministers  to 
humanity.  With  him,  the  person  into  whose  hands 
their  suffering  bodies  were  committed  in  an  almost 
pitiful  confidence,  they  were  concerned  to  hide 
themselves  far  less  than  with  any  other;  and  in 
this  triumphant  discovery  Edwin  flattered  himself 
that  he  was  becoming  richly  learned  in  human 
nature.  He  did  not  realise  how  little  he  had 
learned. 

One  thing,  however,  that  these  days  taught  him, 
he  never  lost  in  after  life :  an  intense  appreciation 
of  the  inherent  patience  and  nobility  of  human 
beings,  the  precious  ore  that  the  fire  of  suffering 
revealed.  Even  the  worst  of  his  patients — in  North 
Bromwich  as  elsewhere  disease  is  an  impartial 
enemy,  falling  on  the  virtuous  and  abandoned  alike 
— revealed  such  amazing  possibilities  of  good.  In 
these  hospital  wards  the  fundamental  gregarious 
instinct  of  mankind,  with  the  unselfishness  and 
sympathy  that  go  along  with  it,  asserted  itself. 
The  common  life  of  the  ward  was  happy,  extraordi- 
narily happy.  Removed  from  the  ordinary  re- 
sponsibilities of  wage-earning  and  competition,  fed 
and  housed  and  tended  without  question,  the  pa- 
tients lived  together  as  happily  as  a  community 
of  African  savages,  supported  by  the  female  labour 
of  the  nursing  staff,  obedient  to  the  unquestioned 
authority  of  the  sister  in  charge. 

And  in  Edwin's  eyes  these,  too,  were  wonderful 
people.  At  first  he  had  taken  them  more  or  less 
for  granted;  but  gradually  he  realised  the  tremen- 


THE  DRESSER  397 

dous  sacrifices  that  their  life  implied:  the  long 
hours :  the  unceasing  strain  of  keeping  their  temper : 
the  clean,  efficient  materialism  for  which  they  must 
have  sacrificed  so  much  of  the  obvious  beauty  of 
life,  committing  themselves — for  most  of  them  were 
middle-aged — to  an  abnegation  of  the  privileges  of 
marriage  and  motherhood  in  a  cloistral  seclusion  as 
complete  as  that  imposed  on  the  useless  devotee 
of  some  mystical  religion.  He  took  it  for  granted 
that  the  life  of  a  nun  was  useless  to  any  one  except 
herself.  .  .  .  Well,  this  was  a  religion  worth  some 
sacrifice:  the  religion  of  humanity.  They  them- 
selves would  only  have  called  it  a  profession.  At 
first  it  had  seemed  to  him  that  their  interests  were 
narrow  and  their  lives,  of  necessity,  mean.  He 
had  been  astonished  at  the  small  things  that  gave 
them  pleasure:  a  bunch  of  primroses  from  a  grate- 
ful patient;  a  ride  on  the  top  of  a  bus;  a  word  of 
commendation  from  one  of  the  consulting  staff;  a 
house-surgeon's  or  even  a  student's  compliment; 
and,  above  all,  the  passionate  attachments  and 
enmities  that  made  up  the  life  of  the  nunnery  in 
which  they  lived :  but  in  the  end  he  began  to  sym- 
pathise with  them  in  the  humility  of  their  pleas- 
ures, to  feel  that  anything  might  be  forgiven  to 
creatures  who  had  made  so  great  a  sacrifice.  In  a 
mild  way  he  idealised  them;  and  for  this  reason 
they  decided  that  he  was  "quite  a  nice  boy." 

m 

In  the  winter  of  his  third  year  Edwin's  newly 
formulated  enthusiasm  for  humanity  in  the  bulk 
suffered  something  of  a  check.  The  hospital  ab- 


sorbed  him  so  completely  that  in  those  days  he  saw 
very  little  of  the  city,  going  to  and  from  his  lectures 
and  his  work  in  the  Pathological  Laboratory  at  the 
University  without  taking  any  real  share  in  the  life 
of  North  Bromwich,  or  being  aware  of  the  passions 
and  interests  that  swayed  the  city's  heart.  Coming 
down  from  the  hospital,  one  evening  in  December, 
he  suddenly  became  conscious  of  a  constriction  in 
the  traffic  which  grew  more  acute  as  it  reached  the 
narrows  that  debouch  upon  the  open  space  in  front 
of  the  town  hall ;  and  while  he  was  wondering  what 
could  be  the  cause  of  this,  a  huge  rumour  of  voices, 
not  unlike  that  which  proceeds  from  a  Midland  foot- 
ball crowd  when  it  disapproves  of  a  referee,  but 
deeper  and  more  malignant,  reached  his  ears. 

He  wondered  what  was  the  matter,  and  since  it 
looked  as  if  the  traffic  were  now  completely  blocked 
on  the  main  road,  he  Cut  down  the  quiet  street  that 
faces  the  university  buildings  and  overlooks  the 
paved  court  in  which  the  statue  of  Sir  Joseph  Astill 
inappropriately  dispenses  water  to  a  big  stone 
basin.  Almost  immediately  he  found  himself  upon 
the  fringes  of  an  immense  crowd  over  which  the 
waves  of  threatening  sound  that  he  had  heard  at 
a  distance  were  moving  like  cats-paws  on  a  sullen 
sea.  The  windows  of  the  town-hall  itself  blazed 
with  light,  making  the  outlines  of  the  Corinthian 
pillars  that  surrounded  it  almost  beautiful.  He 
edged  his  way  into  the  black  crowd.  It  was  com- 
posed for  the  most  part  of  workers  in  iron  and 
brass,  and  exhaled  an  odour  of  stale  oil.  In  a  mo- 
ment of  relative  silence  he  asked  the  man  who  stood 
in  front  Of  him,  a  little  mechanic  who  had  not 


THE  DRESSER  399 

troubled  to  change  the  oily  dongarees  in  which  he 
worked,  what  was  the  matter. 

"It's  Lloyd  George  ...  the  b ,"  he  said,  and 

spat  fiercely. 

Edwin  was  not  sure  where  he  had  heard  the  name 
before.  He  seemed  to  remember  it  as  that  of  a 
Welsh  member  of  Parliament  who  had  come  into 
notoriety  during  the  debates  on  the  South  African 
War.  He  inquired  what  Lloyd  George  was  doing. 

"Come  to  speak  agen'  Joe,"  said  the  mechanic 
savagely ;  and,  as  a  wave  of  sound  that  had  started 
somewhere  in  the  middle  of  the  crowd  came  sweep- 
ing towards  them,  he  suddenly  began  to  squeal 
hoarsely  like  a  carnivorous  beast  in  a  cage:  a 
ridiculous  noise,  that  seemed,  nevertheless,  to  ex- 
press the  feelings  of  the  multitude.  From  scraps 
of  conversation  that  he  heard  beneath  the  crowd's 
rumour,  Edwin  began  to  understand  that  this 
beggarly  Welshman,  who  had  spent  the  last  few 
years  in  vilifying  the  workmen  of  Xorth  Bromwich 
generally,  and  their  political  idol  in  particular,  had 
actually  dared  to  bring  his  dirty  accusations  to  the 
political  heart  of  the  city:  the  town-hall  in  which 
their  favourite  had  delivered  his  most  important 
speeches;  that,  at  this  very  moment,  the  meeting 
which  popular  feeling  had  proscribed,  was  begin- 
ning behind  the  Corinthian  pillars,  and  that  the 
just  indignation  of  North  Bromwich  had  deter- 
mined that  he  should  not  escape  with  his  life. 

It  struck  Edwin  that  whatever  else  the  Welsh- 
man might  be,  he  was  certainly  not  lacking  in  cour- 
age; but,  for  all  that,  he  found  it  difficult  to  pre- 
vent his  own  feelings  in  the  matter  from  being 


400         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

swamped  and  absorbed  and  swept  away  by  the 
crowd's  vast,  angry  consciousness.  Almost  in  spite 
of  himself,  his  heart  palpitated  with  vehement 
malice  against  the  intruder.  He  felt  that  he  would 
have  experienced  a  brutal  satisfaction  in  seeing  him 
torn  limb  from  limb. 

A  yell  of  extraordinary  savagery,  in  which  he 
found  it  difficult  not  to  join,  rose  from  the  square. 

The  meeting,  it  seemed,  had  begun.  Edwin  saw 
members  of  the  crowd  scattering  in  all  directions. 
A  cry  of  "stones !"  was  raised,  and  he  saw  that  men, 
women,  and  children  were  streaming  towards  an 
area  of  slum  that  was  being  dismantled  to  make 
room  for  some  monument  of  municipal  grandeur, 
returning  with  caps  and  hands  and  aprons  full  of 
stones  and  broken  brick.  Soon  the  air  was  full  of 
flying  missiles,  and  though  the  crash  of  glass  could 
not  be  heard,  ragged  holes  were  torn  in  the  frosted 
glass  of  the  town-hall  windows. 

A  body  of  police,  tremendous  strapping  fellows, 
marched  by,  followed  by  impotent  jeers  and  hoot- 
ing, and  planted  themselves  in  front  of  all  the  doors 
with  truncheons  drawn.  Their  presence  seemed  to- 
enrage  the  crowd,  inflaming  that  suppressed  hate 
of  the  forces  of  order  that  slumbers  in  most  men's 
hearts.  The  volleys  of  stones  increased  as  the  sup- 
plies of  ammunition  grew  more  plentiful.  A  little 
dark  man  with  a  red  tie  monotonously  shouting  the 
words:  "Free  speech!"  was  caught  up,  and,  as  it 
seemed  to  Edwin,  trampled  to  death.  Somewhere 
in  the  middle  of  the  struggling  masses  people  be- 
gan to  sing  the  revivalist  hymn :  "Shall  we  gather 
at  the  river?"  It  reached  Edwin  in  an  immense 


THE  DRESSER  401 

and  gathering  volume,  with  words  adapted  for  the 
occasion : — 

"Shall  we  gather  at  the  fountain, 
The  beautiful,  the  beautiful,  the  fountain? 
We'll  drown  Lloyd  George  in  the  fountain, 
And  he  won't  come  here  any  more." 

The  very  volume  of  sound  was  impressive  and 
inspiring. 

Suddenly  the  crowd  was  parted  by  the  arrival  of 
a  new  body.  It  was  a  phalanx  of  university  stu- 
dents who  had  dragged  an  immense  beam  of  oak 
from  the  debris  of  the  dismantled  slum  and  were 
hurling  it  forward  as  a  battering  ram  against  one 
of  the  principal  doors.  Edwin  could  see  amongst 
them  the  towering  shoulders  of  W.G.,  and  the  mouth 
of  the  elder  Wade,  the  hero  of  the  hansom  cab,  wide 
open  and  yelling.  It  seemed  as  though  the  savagery 
of  the  crowd  had  reached  its  height:  they  tore  a 
way  through  it,  trampling  the  fallen  as  they  went. 
And  then  the  police,  who  had  been  held  in  reserve, 
charged  at  right  angles  to  them,  hitting  out  right 
and  left  with  their  loaded  batons.  The  less  coura- 
geous part  of  the  crowd  tried  to  scatter.  The  wave 
of  a  stampede  spread  outwards  till  it  reached  the 
edge  on  which  Edwin  was  standing.  He  was  thrown 
violently  from  his  feet  into  the  chest  of  a  stranger, 
who  shouted,  "Hallo,  Ingleby "  It  was  Mat- 
thew Boyce.  "I  think  we'd  better  get  out  of  this," 
lie  said. 

The  words  seemed  to  pull  Edwin  back  into  sanity. 
Together  they  forced  their  way  into  a  street  that 
was  empty  but  for  a  stream  of  people  hurrying  to 


402        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

the  square  with  stones.     They  stood  panting  in 
the  quiet. 

"God  .  .  .  what  animals  men  are!"  said  Boyce. 
"I  suppose  it  was  something  like  this  a  hundred 
years  ago,  when  they  burned  Priestley's  house." 

"Yes,  it's  pretty  rotten,"  said  Edwin,  "but  didn't 
you  feel  you  wanted  to  join  in  it?" 

"Yes,  that's  the  amazing  part  of  it,"  said  Boyce. 
"What's  happening  to  you  in  these  days?  We  seem 
to  have  lost  sight  of  one  another."  [>bu8 

They  walked  down  to  the  station  together. 
"It's  an  extraordinary  thing,  isn't  it?"  said  Ed- 
win, "that  ordinary  peaceable  men  should  go  mad 
like  that?" 

"They  aren't  men,"  said  Boyee.  "They're  a 
crowd."  .  '  n;  ,  .  ;  >  .  7/  'k>  a-t  v  I  >  [no-.  .  •  ••  tU  i  ftorft 

D  moBJimJ  yrft  to  o'.iofl  9if>  M>Ji77  -jyi 
v-i^^i;-;/^  oifi  ihjnoiM  a  is  •  jirifOr/  bne  neqo 

:  itlji.i'K[  aii  taif-m^t  Dial  ir^o-io  9(U  lo 
•  if  I  KK  nsflfit  ')([t  ^uil(f(.i- 
iti  Jbbil  fi'.)S)(J  bud  oifv/  ,'V)iro<{  Mf(t  nod)  F:»«A. 

:il)h{  ,moil'  •.</;  JfbJ'f    ?u  f>4i 

-E'lf  tfT 

/i.'i)  fjv/'O'i-o  ydt  1o 
otft  ti  lift  Bfm»v/1i/o  b.Bti-rqK  'jirj({m/;ta  «  Ho 

1.1  //o'ji't  ^r.v/  ^H    .v.inbiiBJa'Rttw  aivAbM  ifoiif-^  no" 

•/  II 


nr  /hiiift  r*     /rv/o<l  v/ei() 
•a  sd 
•ffia  otirr  >l-)B({  frfv^bH  flnq  oi  Iwn'w  ^.iViov/  9rfT 


oj  t;urri'iinl  aCoo     lo  m/mie 


- 

}r>d] 

CHAPTER  VTI 

hm; 

THE  CLERK 

- 

boo..' 

• 

WITH  this  chance  encounter,  the  friendship 
of  Edwin  and  Matthew  Boyce  really  began ; 
and  during  the  fourth  year,  that  now  opened  before 
him,  the  figure  of  W.G.,  who  had  dominated  his 
stage  by  sheer  physical  magnitude,  gradually  re- 
ceded. It  was  inevitable ;  for  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Boyces'  house  at  Alvaston,  with  its  air  of  culture 
and  refinement,  was  far  more  in  keeping  with  Ed- 
win's inclinations  than  the  obtuse,  if  honest,  com- 
panionship of  W.G.  Edwin  felt  some  misgivings 
for  his  desertion;  but  Maskew,  who  had  now  bril- 
liantly taken  his  Primary  Fellowship,  began  his 
hospital  career  and  rejoined  his  old  partner.  So, 
seeing  that  the  needs  of  W.G.  were  provided  for 
and  his  responsibilities  of  friendship  at  an  end, 
Edwin  drifted  into  a  happy  intimacy  with  the  poet's 
son. 

They  were  both  so  young  as  to  be  convinced  that 
they  were  very  old.  The  world  was  theirs ;  for  they 
were  full  of  health  and  contentment  and,  at  pres- 
ent, so  free  from  complication  that  they  could  en- 
joy to  the  full  the  treasures  of  the  past  and  shape 
the  future  into  splendid  dreams.  In  the  beginning 
they  had  found  a  field  of  common  interest  in  great 

403 


404         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

works  of  literature;  but  these  enthusiasms  did  not 
carry  them  very  far,  for  the  appreciation  of  literary 
masterpieces  is  at  its  best  a  solitary  pleasure  that 
is  not  increased  by  the  joy  of  sharing.  It  was  in 
the  enjoyment  of  music  that  their  friendship  found 
the  most  intense  of  its  pleasures. 

Edwin's  musical  development  had  been  slow. 
The  first  seeds  had  been  planted  in  his  babyhood 
when,  without  understanding,  he  had  listened  to  his 
mother's  playing.  The  chapel  services  at  St.  Luke's 
made  interesting  by  the  exotic  harmonies  of  Dr. 
Downton,  had  nursed  his  interest  in  the  beauty  of 
organised  sound.  The  closed  piano  in  his  mother's 
drawing-room  had  been  the  symbol  of  an  instinct 
temporarily  thwarted,  and  from  this  he  had  escaped 
by  way  of  Aunt  Laura's  late  Victorian  ballads 
which  had  seemed  to  him  very  beautiful  in  their 
kind.  Luckily  his  mother's  library  of  music  had 
been  good  if  old-fashioned,  and  when  he  amused 
himself,  more  or  less  indiscriminately,  by  trying  to 
learn  the  piano  at  home,  he  had  been  forced  to  do 
so  by  way  of  the  sonatas  of  Beethoven,  Schubert, 
and  Mozart,  and  the  Wohltemperiertes  Klavier  of 
Bach. 

The  emotional  disturbance  of  his  strange  adven- 
ture with  Dorothy  Powys  had  thrown  him  into  an 
orgy  of  verse-making  which  produced  such  poor 
results  that  he  was  forced  to  turn  to  the  love-poetry 
of  the  Elizabethans  and  of  Shelley,  which  he  em- 
broidered with  musical  settings  that  gave  him  more 
satisfaction.  These  attempts  at  song-writing 
pleased  him  for  a  time;  but  it  was  not  until  he 
became  friendly  with  Boyce  that  he  began  to  realise 


THE  CLERK  405 

what  music  was.  Not  only  were  the  Boyces  the 
possessors  of  a  grand-piano  on  which  his  homely 
tinklings  became  magnificently  amplified,  but  his 
friend's  father,  the  poet,  was  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  best  of  modern  music. 

Boyce  introduced  Edwin  to  the  great  German 
song-writers  from  Schubert  and  Schumann  to  Hugo 
Wolf,  and  laid  the  foundations  of  a  feverish  devo- 
tion to  Wagner,  whom  the  friends  approached  per- 
force by  way  of  Tannhauser  and  Lohengrin,  the  two 
operas  that  the  Moody  Manners  company  ventured 
to  present  to  provincial  audiences.  Edwin  dis- 
covered that  North  Bromwich,  a  city  that  takes  its- 
music  as  a  boa-constrictor  takes  food,  in  the  tri- 
ennial debauch  of  a  festival  and  then  goes  to  sleep 
again,  supported — or  rather  failed  to  support — a 
society  for  the  performance  of  orchestral  music. 
The  concerts  were  held  fortnightly  in  the  town-hall, 
the  windows  of  which  had  now  been  repaired,  and 
to  these  concerts  Edwin  and  his  friend  went  to- 
gether, always  sitting  in  the  same  two  seats  under 
the  gallery  at  the  back  of  the  hall.  In  this  way 
they  heard  a  great  deal  of  good  music :  the  nine  sym- 
phonies of  Beethoven,  with  the  Leeds  Choir  in  the 
last:  the  usual  orchestral  extracts  from  the  Ring, 
the  Meistersingers  Overture,  and  the  Siegfried 
Idyll :  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  symphonies  of 
Tschaikowski :  the  tone-poems  of  Strauss,  and  a 
small  sprinkling  of  modern  French  music.  These 
were  ambrosial  nights  to  which  they  both  looked 
forward,  and  Martin,  who  had  developed  an  unex- 
pected inclination  for  music,  sometimes  went  with 
them. 


406         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

The  concerts  became  the  central  incident  in  a 
kind  of  ritual.  At  seven  o'clock  the  two,  or  some- 
times three,  would  meet  in  the  grill  room  behind 
the  bar  at  Joey's  and  consume  a  gross  but  splendid 
repast  of  tripe  and  onions  together  with  a  pint  or 
more  of  bitter  Burton.  All  the  best  music,  they 
had  decided,  was  German,  and  beer  was  the  only 
drink  on  which  it  could  be  fully  appreciated,  de 
Quincey's  preference  for  laudanum  notwithstand- 
ing. Pleasantly  elated,  they  would  cross  the  road 
to  the  town-hall  and  take  their  familiar  seats, 
pleased  to  recognise  the  people  who,  like  themselves, 
were  regular  attendants  or  subscribers  to  this  un- 
fashiojiable  function ;  and  Boyce,  who,  by  virtue  of 
his  distinguished  parentage,  knew  every  one  in 
North  Bromwich  who  was  interested  in  music, 
would  point  out  to  them  all  the  distinguished  people 
who  were  present :  Oldham,  the  critic  of  the  Mail, 
whom  Arthur  Boyce  declared  to  be  the  soundest 
living  writer  on  musical  subjects,  and  Marsden,  who 
did  the  musical  criticism  for  the  Courier.  Matthew 
knew  them  both.  Oldham,  he  said,  was  a  wonder- 
ful fellow,  who  wrote  with  a  pen  of  vitriol  that 
made  such  short  work  of  baser  metals  that  the  gold 
of  beauty  appeared  brighter  for  his  writing.  Old- 
ham  became  Edwin's  prophet;  but,  on  the  whole, 
he  preferred  the  looks  of  Marsden. 

*       rl  ,       .          ,_  ,  ...  „„     ,  .  ,  )Hi 

"What  is  Marsden  like?"  he  asked. 

•'    iU>  M8 

"Marsden?  Oh,  well,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Mars- 
den's  a  bit  of  a  gas  bag.  The  governor  says  that  he 
always  reminds  him  of  an  old  hen.  Didn't  you 
notice  him  in  Joey's  talking  nineteen  to  the  dozen 


THE  CLERK  407 

to  that  queer  fellow  with  a  face  like  a  full  moon 
who  sits  in  front  of  us?" 

The  fellow  with  the  face  like  a  full  moon  was 
only  one  of  twenty  or  thirty  people  with  whom  the 
friends  experienced  a  sort  of  comradeship  on  these 
nights.  Perhaps  the  most  wonderful  time  was  the 
end  of  the  concert  when  they  would  walk  out  to- 
gether into  the  spring  night,  parting  at  the  corner 
of  the  town-hall;  and  the  memory  of  great 
musical  moments  would  accompany  Edwin  home 
through  miles  of  darkling  country,  and  even  fill  his 
little  room  at  Halesby  with  their  remembered  glory 
or  wander  through  his  dreams. 

His  life  at  home  was  the  least  satisfactory  part 
of  these  enchanted  years.  There  were  moments, 
indeed,  when  it  seemed  as  if  the  ideal  relationship 
with  his  father,  that  had  been  his  early  ambition, 
were  being  realised.  Sometimes,  on  a  Sunday 
morning,  they  would  walk  round  the  garden  to- 
gether in  the  sun,  and  Edwin  would  experience  a 
return  of  the  passionate  good-will  and  anxiety  to 
please  that  had  overwhelmed  him  in  the  moment  of 
their  bereavement;  but  their  two  natures  were 
radically  so  different  that  such  moments  were  rare, 
and,  when  they  came,  were  really  more  of  an  em- 
barrassment than  a  pleasure. 

He  felt  that,  on  his  side  at  any  rate,  the  relation- 
ship was  artificial;  that,  however  unnatural  it 
might  seem,  he  really  had  to  whip  himself  up  to  a 
proper  appreciation  of  his  father's  virtues.  A  sense 
of  veiled  but  radical  antagonism  underlay  all  their 
dealings  with  each  other ;  and  at  times  this  hidden 
thing,  that  Edwin  held  in  such  dread,  came  so 


408         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

perilously  near  to  the  surface  as  to  threaten  an 
open  rupture. 

The  question  of  Edwin's  allowance  created  one  of 
these  dangerous  situations.  Edwin  knew  that  it 
was  impossible  for  him  to  live  the  ordinary  life  of 
a  medical  student  in  North  Bromwich  without  one ; 
but  the  distaste  for  speaking  of  money  matters, 
which  arose  from  his  delicate  appreciation  of  his 
father's  finances,  had  made  it  difficult  to  approach 
the  subject.  At  last  he  had  screwed  up  his  courage 
to  the  point  of  making  a  very  modest  demand,  and 
his  father,  instead  of  realising  the  difficulty  he  had 
found  in  doing  so,  had  hedged  in  a  way  that  made 
Edwin  feel  himself  a  hard  and  mercenary  parasite. 

"All  right,  father,  we  won't  say  anything  more 
about  it,"  he  said,  comforting  himself  with  the  as- 
surance that  in  a  couple  of  years  he  would  be 
qualified  and  in  a  position  to  earn  his  own  living 
and  pay  his  way.  On  the  strength  of  this,  and 
with  his  eyes  wide  open,  he  ran  up  a  number  of 
small  tailors'  bills  in  North  Bromwich;  and  all 
would  have  been  well  if  Mr.  Ingleby,  in  a  fit  of  ab- 
sent-mindedness, had  not  opened  these  incriminat- 
ing documents  and  leapt  to  the  conclusion  that  his 
son  was  going  rapidly  to  the  dogs.  An  unfortunate 
scene  followed. 

"I  suppose  you  realise,  Edwin,"  he  said,  "that 
you  are  a  minor,  and  that  while  you  are  under  age 
I  am  responsible  for  these  bills  ?" 

"I've  not  the  least  intention  of  letting  you  pay 
them,"  said  Edwin. 

"I'm  afraid  I  have  no  alternative.  I  want  you 
to  tell  me  truthfully  if  there  are  any  others." 


THE  CLERK  409 

"Of  course  there  are  others.  Please  don't  bother 
about  them.  In  a  little  while  'I  shall  be  able  to 
pay  them." 

"This  is  a  great  blow  to  me/'  said 'Mr.  Ingleby 
solemnly,  overwhelming  Edwin  with  a  picture  of 
virtuous  poverty  staggering  from  a  cowardly  blow 
in  the  dark;  and  the  obvious  distrust  with  which 
his  father  regarded  him  made  his  position  at  home 
almost  intolerable.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his 
father  now  looked  upon  all  his  pleasures,  with  sus- 
picion ;  and,  as  a  natural  result,  he  lived  more  than 
ever  to  himself,  only  returning  to  Halesby  late  at 
night  or  at  times  when  he  knew  that  his  father 
would  be  busy  in  the  shop.  One  circumstance  came 
to  bridge  the  gap  between  them,  a  course  of 
pharmacology  that  Edwin  took  early  in  his  fourth 
year.  He  was  delighted  to  find  a  subject  in  which 
his  father  was  more  learned  than  himself,  and  spent 
a  number  of  hours  that  were  almost  happy  in  the 
shop  answering  the  questions  that  Mr.  Ingleby  put 
to  him  on  pharmacopoeial  doses  and  searching  the 
little  nests  of  drawers  for  rare  drugs  to  identify 
in  their  raw  state.  But  the  pharmacology  course 
was  short,  and  the  subject  that  was  so  important 
in  his  father's  life  was  small  and  unimportant  in 
Edwin's.  In  addition  to  which  he  could  not  help 
feeling  a  sort  of  ethical  prejudice  against  the  com- 
placency with  which  his  father  discharged  patent 
medicines  that  he  knew  to  be  worthless  if  not  harm- 
ful. 

Every  circumstance  tended  to  isolate  him  from 
the  influences  of  Halesby.  His  sudden  attempt  to 
be  friendly  with  Edward  Willis  had  withered  un- 


410         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

der  the  humiliating  denouement  of  his  adventure 
with  Dorothy  Powys;  the  new  fields  of  music  that 
he  explored  with  Matthew  Boyce  had  made  him 
discontented  with  Aunt  Laura's  ballads;  the  gen- 
eral air  of  elegance  and  refinement  with  which  he 
had  become  acquainted  in  one  or  two  Alvaston 
houses  to  which  the  Boyces  had  introduced  him, 
made  everything  in  Halesby,  even  his  own  home, 
seem  a  little  shabby  and  unsatisfactory.  North 
Bromwich,  and  his  work  there,  claimed  him  more 
and  more. 

ii 

Even  when  his  first  enthusiasms  and  the  inspir- 
ing generalisations  that  arose  from  them  were  ex- 
hausted, he  found  that  he  could  not  escape  from  the 
fascination  of  the  studies  which  he  now  pursued, 
for  the  most  part,  in  the  company  of  Matthew 
Boyce.  His  third  year  had  not  only  introduced  him 
to  the  romance  of  surgery  and  the  human  interests 
of  hospital  life.  He  had  spent  long  hours  in  the 
pathological  laboratory  and  had  made  acquaintance 
with  bacteriology,  a  science  that  was  still  in  its 
infancy. 

In  this  work  he  had  shared  a  desk  with  Boyce, 
to  whom  it  was  particularly  attractive,  and  between 
them  they  had  developed  a  bacteriological  technique 
rather  above  the  average,  taking  an  imaginative  de- 
light in  the  isolation  of  the  microscopic  deadly 
forms  of  vegetable  life  that  are  responsible  for 
nearly  all  the  physical  sufferings  of  mankind. 
When  they  looked  together  at  the  banded  bacilli  of 
tubercule,  stained  red  with  carbolfuchsin,  they  saw 


THE  CLERK  411 

more  than  a  specimen  under  a  coverglass :  they  saw 
the  chosen  and  bitter  enemies  of  genius,  the  malig- 
nant, insensate  spores  of  lowest  life  that  had 
banished  Keats  to  fade  in  Rome,  Shelley  to  drown 
by  Via  Reggio,  Stevenson  to  perish  in  Samoa:  the 
blind  instruments  of  destruction  that  were  even 
then  draining  ttie  last  strength  from  the  opium- 
sodden  frame  of  the  author  of  The  Hound  of 
Heaven.  Here,  in  a  single  test-tube,  they  could  see 
enclosed  enough  of  the  organisms  Of  cholera  to 
sweep  all  Asia  with  a  wave  of  pestilence;  here, 
stained  with  Indian  ink,  the  dreamy  trypanosome 
that  had  wrapped  the  swarming  shores  of  the 
Nyanzas  of  dark  Africa  in  the  sleep  of  death. 

Both  of  them  were  seized  with  a  passionate  fever 
for  research,  to  rid  humanity  of  this  insidious  and 
appalling  blight.  Now,  more  than  ever,  they  felt 
the  supreme  responsibilities  of  their  calling;  and 
when,  in  their  fourth  year,  they  passed  on  to  their 
work  in  the  medical  wards,  as  clerks  to  the  senior 
physician  at  the  Infirmary,  and  saw  the  effects  of 
bacterial  havoc  on  the  bodies  of  men  and  women, 
their  enthusiasm  rose  to  a  still  higher  pitch. 

The  canons  of  the  new  university  decreed  that 
students  who  had  learnt  their  surgery  at  one  hos- 
pital should  study  medicine  at  the  other.  It  was 
something  of  a  disappointment  to  Edwin  to  ex- 
change the  homely  atmosphere  of  Prince's,  where 
everything  was  familiar,  for  the  colder  and  more 
formal  wards  of  the  Infirmary.  This  hospital, 
which  was  nearly  twice  the  size  of  the  other,  was 
situated  in  the  lower  and  less  healthy  part  of  the 
city.  At  Prince's  there  had  been  a  way  of  escape 


412         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

westwards  through  the  pleasant  suburban  greens  of 
Alvaston  to  the  country  and  the  hills.  The  Infirm- 
ary, in  its  terra-cotta  arrogance,  had  been  set  down 
in  the  heart  of  unreclaimed  slums,  in  such  a  way 
that  its  very  magnificence  and  efficiency  were  de- 
pressing by  contrast.  Edwin  disliked  the  palatial 
splendour  of  its  shining  wards  which,  for  all  their 
roominess,  were  full  of  an  air  that  suffocated;  for 
the  windows  were  never  opened,  and  the  atmosphere 
that  the  patients  breathed  had  been  sucked  into  the 
place  by  an  immense  system  of  forced  .ventilation, 
filtered  until  it  seemed  to  have  lost  all  its  nature, 
heated,  and  then  propelled  througli  innumerable 
shafts  into  every  corner  of  the  building.  In  the 
basement  of  the  hospital  the  machine  that  was  re- 
sponsible for  this  circulation  of  heated  air  made  a 
melancholy  groaning;  and  this  sound  made  the 
whole  structure  seem  more  like  an  artificial  as- 
sembly of  matter  than  a  real  hospital  with  a  per- 
sonality and  a  soul. 

It  is  possible  that  the  teaching  methods  of  the 
Infirmary  were  superior  to  those  of  Prince's;  and 
the  supporters  of  the  institution  prided  themselves 
on  the  fact  that  the  nursing  staff  was  drawn  from 
a  higher  social  stratum;  but  for  a  long  time  Ed- 
win felt  considerably  less  at  home  there  than  he 
had  been  at  the  older  hospital.  The  ward  work, 
however,  was  even  more  fascinating,  for  the  reason, 
no  doubt,  that  his  wonder  was  now  tempered  with 
a  higher  degree  of  erudition. 

He  found  his  new  chief  an  inspiring  figure.  In 
the  first  place,  the  fact  that  he  was  a  gentleman 
and  a  man  of  culture  made  him  an  effective  con- 


THE  CLERK  413 

trast  to  that  dynamic  but  plebeian  genius,  L.M. 
He  was  a  graduate  of  one  of  the  older  universities, 
and  though  this  counted  for  little  in  the  mind  of 
Edwin,  who  now  affected  to  despise  the  city  of  his 
broken  dream,  it  did  lend  an  air  of  distinction  to 
Sir  Arthur  Weldon's  discourses.  He  had  a  quiet 
voice,  an  admirable  manner  with  women  patients 
or  nurses,  and  beautiful  hands,  on  one  of  which  he 
wore  a  signet  ring  embellished  with  his  crest  and 
a  motto  which  his  presence  merited :  "In  toto  teres 
atque  rotundus."  The  rotundity,  it  may  be  added, 
was  so  mild  as  to  do  no  more  than  accentuate  the 
elegance  of  a  gold  and  platinum  watch-chain  that 
he  wore.  He  was  a  great  stickler  for  the  traditions 
and  dignity  of  his  profession,  and  no  word  that  was 
not  infallibly  correct  disturbed  the  urbanity  of  his 
slow  and  polished  periods.  For  this  reason  his 
tutorials  in  the  wards  were  models  of  academic 
dignity,  and  much  frequented  by  students  who  knew 
that  he  was  far  too  anxious  for  the  form  of  his  dis- 
course to  break  its  continuity  by  asking  awkward 
questions.  He  treated  his  clerks,  and  indeed  every 
member  of  his  classes,  as  if  they  were  gentlemen 
nurtured  in  the  same  fine  atmosphere  as  himself. 
He  inspired  confidence,  and  demanded  nothing  in. 
return  but  correctness  of  behaviour  and  speech. 

All  these  things  made  it  easy  to  work  for  him; 
and  the  fact  that  over  and  above  these  social  quali- 
ties he  was  a  particularly  sound  physician,  with  a 
reputation  that  was  already  more  than  provincial, 
made  Edwin  sensible  of  the  privilege  of  acting  as 
his  clerk. 

His  specialty  was  disease  affecting  the  heart  or 


4H         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

lungs,  and  though  his  wards  at  the  infirmary  were 
open  to  all  sorts  of  general  medical  cases,  these 
two  types  of  tragedy  came  most  frequently  under 
Ms  care  and  Edwin's  observation.  Sir  Arthur 
exacted  from  his  clerks  the  preparation  of  accurate 
and  voluminous  notes  on  all  his  cases,  and  Edwin 
spent  many  hours  in  the  wards  extracting  from  his 
patients  the  details  of  family  and  medical  history 
and  moulding  them  into  a  balanced  and  intelligible 
report.  The  emotions  that  the  study  of  the  tubercle 
bacillus  had  aroused  in  him  in  the  laboratory  were 
reinforced  a  hundred  times  in  the  wards  devoted 
to  phthisical  patients,  too  far  advanced  in  dissolu- 
tion for  sanatorium  treatment,  that  were  his  chief's 
especial  care. 

They  were  most  of  them  creatures  of  intelligence 
and  sensitiveness  above  the  average  of  the  hospital 
patient ;  their  eyes  shone  between  their  long  lashes 
with  a  light  that  may  have  been  taken  for  that  of 
inspiration  in  those  of  dead  poets ;  even  in  the  later 
stages  of  the  disease,  when  their  strength  would 
hardly  allow  them  to  drag  up  their  emaciated  limbs 
in  their  beds,  and  their  bodies  were  wrung  nightly 
with  devastating  sweats  or  attacks  of  haemorrhage 
that  left  them  transparent  and  exhausted — even 
then  they  were  so  ready  to  be  cheerful  and  to  let 
their  imagination  blossom  in  vain  hope,  that  Edwin 
found  them  the  most  pitiful  of  all  his  patients.  The 
spes  phthisica  seemed  to  him  the  most  pathetic  as 
well  as  the  most  merciful  of  illusions. 

In  this  ward  he  became  acquainted  with  one  pa- 
tient in  particular,  a  boy,  the  son  of  labouring  par- 
ents whom  heredity  and  circumstance  alike  had 


THE  CLERK  415 

marked  down  from  the  day  of  his  birth  to  be  a 
victim  of  the  disease.  His  mother  and  two  sisters 
had  died  of  it,  and  all  his  short  life  had  been  spent 
in  a  labourer's  cottage  made  deadly  by  the  family's 
infection,  at  the  sunless  bottom  of  a  wet  Welsh 
valley. 

As  a  child  he  had  been  too  delicate  to  enjoy  the 
fresh  air  that  he  would  have  breathed  on  the  way 
to  the  village  school.  He  had  lived,  as  far  as  Ed- 
win could  make  out,  in  the  single  room  in  which  his 
mother  had  lain  dying,  and  had  learned  to  read  and 
write  at  her  side.  Then  she  had  died ;  and  as  soon 
as  he  was  old  enough  he  had  been  sent  out  to 
work  on  the  farm  where  his  father  was  employed, 
an  occupation  that  might  well  have  saved  him  if 
the  work  and  the  exposure  had  not  been  too  severe, 
or  if  he  had  not  returned  at  night  to  the  infected 
hovel.  As  it  was,  in  the  rainy  autumn  weather  of 
the  hills,  he  had  caught  a  chill  and  sickened  with 
pleurisy,  and  thus  the  inevitable  had  happened. 

He  was  only  fifteen.  Education  had  never  come 
his  way,  and  he  had  never  read  any  books  but  the 
Confessions  of  Maria  Monk  and  the  family  Bible; 
but  whenever  Edwin  came  to  go  over  his  chest  and 
make  the  necessary  report  of  progress — fallacious 
word — upon  his  case  sheets,  he  noticed  that  the  boy 
would  hide  a  sheet  of  paper  on  which  he  had  been 
writing.  His  confidence  was  easily  won,  and  with- 
out the  least  shame  he  showed  Edwin  what  he  had 
been  doing.  He  had  spent  his  time  in  writing  verses 
composed,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  jingling  meas- 
ures of  Moody  and  Sankey's  hymns.  They  were 
sprinkled  with  strange  dialect  words  that  filled 


4i6         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

them  with  splashes  of  sombre  colour ;  most  of  them 
were  frankly  ungrammatical ;  but  there  were  things 
in  some  of  them  that  seemed  to  Edwin  to  bear  the 
same  relation  to  poetry  as  the  mountain  tricklinga 
of  that  far  hill  country  bore  to  the  full  stream  of 
Severn.  Their  banalities,  faintly  imitated  from 
the  banalities  of  the  hymn  book,  were  occasionally 
relieved  by  phrases  of  pure  beauty  that  caught  the 
breath  with  surprise. 

"Why  do  you  do  this?"  Edwin  asked,  and  when 
he  had  recovered  from  the  shyness  and  diffidence 
into  which  the  question  had  cast  him,  the  boy  told 
him  that  he  wrote  his  verses  because  he  couldn't 
help  it,  because  the  words  became  an  obsession  to 
him  and  would  not  let  him  sleep  until  they  were 
written  down.  The  thin  flame  of  creative  aspiration 
showed  itself  in  other  ways,  in  the  patient's  vivid 
delight  in  colours  and  sounds,  and  in  the  strange 
pictures,  having  no  relation  to  nature,  that  he  drew 
with  coloured  chalks. 

It  seemed  to  Edwin  that  in  this  case  the  exhaus- 
tion of  chronic  disease  had  revealed  the  existence, 
as  it  sometimes  will,  of  a  faint  fire  of  natural  genius. 
"There,  but  for  the  spite  of  heaven,"  he  thought, 
"goes  John  Keats,"  and,  with  the  feelings  of  an 
experimenter  in  explosives  who  mixes  strange 
reagents,  he  lent  his  patient  a  copy  of  the  poet's 
works. 

The  boy  fell  on  them  eagerly.  He  confessed  that 
he  did  not  understand  them;  but  he  would  read 
them  all  day,  mispronouncing  the  words  as  the 
classical  student  perhaps  mispronounces  those  of 
the  Greek  poets,  but  extracting  from  their  sono- 


THE  CLERK  417 

rous  beauty  a  curious  and  vivid  sensual  satisfaction. 
A  single  line  would  sometimes  throw  him  into  a 
kind  of  trance,  and  he  would  lean  back  in  his  bed 
with  the  book  open  on  his  chest  and  his  slender 
clubbed  fingers  clasped  above  it,  repeating  to  him- 
self his  own  version  of  the  words  without  any  con- 
ception of  their  real  meaning.  Sometimes  a  line 
would  fill  him  with  memories : — 

"Deep  in  the  shady  sadness  of  a  vale 
Far  sunken  from  the  healthy  breath  of  morn, 
Far  from  the  fiery  moon,  and  eve's  one  star . . ." 

"That  is  like  our  home,"  he  would  say. 

The  house-physician  did  not  approve  of  these 
experiments.  On  principle  he  would  have  disap- 
proved of  poetry,  and  in  this  case  he  considered  the 
reading  of  it  unhealthy.  As  if  there  were  any 
element  of  health  in  this  misfortune!  ...  A  few 
weeks  later  the  patient  had  an  attack  of  haemoptysis 
and  died. 

It  was  only  in  such  cases  of  chronic  illness  that 
the  question  of  the  patient's  intellectual  state  arose. 
Such  speculations  might  mitigate  the  fatigue  of 
slow  siege  warfare  that  had  only  one  end  in  view, 
but  the  acute  medical  wards,  and  particularly  those 
devoted  to  acute  pneumonia,  were  the  scene  of 
shorter  and  more  desperate  conflicts,  grapplings 
with  death,  in  which  the  issue  was  doubtful  and 
medicine  could  at  least  give  support,  and  some- 
times turn  the  tide. 

These  were  indeed  terrible  battles,  in  which  de- 
voted nursing  counted  for  much.  To  Edwin  it 


418         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

was  a  sight  more  awe-inspiring  than  the  quiet  of 
death,  to  watch  a  strong  man  stretched  upon  his 
back,  breathing  terribly  through  the  night-long 
struggles  of  pneumonia.  In  it  he  could  see  the 
most  tremendous  expression  of  a  man's  will  to  live, 
in  the  clenched  hands,  in  the  neck,  knotted  and 
swollen  with  intolerable  strain,  in  the  working  of 
the  muscles  of  the  face  and  nose  in  their  supreme 
thirst  for  air.  The  sound  of  this  breathing  would 
fill  the  room  that  was  otherwise  so  silent  that  one 
could  hear  the  soft  hiss  of  the  oxygen  escaping  from 
its  cylinder.  The  train  of  students  that  followed 
Sir  Arthur  round  the  wards  would  stand  waiting 
in  the  doorway,  knowing  that  nothing  was  to  be 
seen,  and  the  physician  himself  would  step  quietly 
to  the  square  of  red  screens  and  exchange  a  whisper 
with  the  sister  who  stood  at  the  patient's  bedside, 
her  lips  compressed  as  though  their  muscles  were 
contracting  in  sympathy  with  the  other  tortured 
muscles  that  she  watched. 

"Well,  how  is  he?"  the  physician  would  ask. 

"I  think  he's  holding  his  own.    No  sleep." 

"That's  a  pity.  Well,  persevere  with  the  brandy 
and  the  warm  oxygen." 

"Yes,  sir."    Her  tense  lips  scarcely  moved. 

And  then  Edwin's  chief,  so  quietly  that  the  pa- 
tient did  not  know  what  he  was  doing,  being  indeed 
no  more  than  a  mass  of  labouring  muscles  bent  on 
life,  would  feel  the  temporal  pulse  in  front  of  the 
ear  with  his  firm  white  finger. 

"Not  so  bad,  sister  .  .  .  not  so  bad." 

Then  he  would  sweep  away  with  the  tails  of  his 
frock-coat  swinging. 


THE  CLERK  419 

"Ingleby,  did  you  notice  anything  about  the  pa- 
tient's hands?" 

"His  hands,  sir?" 

'Tea  ...  his  hands." 

"No,  sir.  Nothing,  I'm  afraid.  I  don't  think  he 
was  plucking  the  bedclothes  .  .  .  carphology,  do 
they  call  it?" 

"You  had  better  look  the  word  up  if  you  are  not 
sure.  No  ...  it  was  a  finer  movement.  He  was 
rolling  his  thumbs  over  the  tips  of  his  index  fingers, 
just  like  a  man  making  pellets  of  bread  at  a  dinner 
party.  There  are  men  who  do  that.  Remember 
it.  It's  a  bad  sign  in  a  case  of  lobar  pneumonia. 
Come  along,  gentlemen.  The  pneumococcus  is  a 
sporting  antagonist.  Short  and  sweet.  I'd  as  soon 
die  of  pneumonia  as  anything  and  have  a  run  for 
my  money.  That  case  has  put  up  a  good  fight." 

That  "case"  ...  On  the  face  of  it  the  use  of  the 
word  seemed  to  justify  the  accusation  of  gross 
materialism  that  is  so  usually  made  against  the 
profession  of  medicine.  The  patient  who  lay  there 
fighting  for  his  life  was,  in  the  physician's  eyes,  a 
case,  and  not,  as  Edwin,  who  had  taken  notes  of 
his  history  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  disease,  knew 
him  to  be  a  bricklayer's  labourer  fro>m  Wolverbury 
with  a  wife  and  six  children,  two  of  whom  had  died 
in  infancy.  He  was  a  case:  a  human  body,  the 
soulless  body  that  Edwin  had  learned  in  detail 
through  two  years  of  labour  in  the  dissecting  room, 
consisting  of  a  heart  hard-pressed,  a  nervous  system 
starved  of  oxygen  and  weakened  by  the  virus  of 
pneumonia,  and  a  pair  of  clogged  lungs.  This  was 
the  whole  truth  as  far  as  it  concerned  the  physician. 


420         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

The  calamity  was  a  material  calamity  to  be  fought 
with  material  weapons,  and  the  state  of  his  soul,  or 
his  relations  with  his  wife  and  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lived,  only  mattered  in  so  far 
as  they  affected  his  body  and  revealed  him  to  have 
been  a  clean-living  and  temperate  man.  For  the 
rest  he  was  a  case ;  and  it  were  well  for  the  physi- 
cian to  leave  the  animula,  vagula,  blandula  to  the 
poets.  This  was  one  of  the  hard  lessons  of  medicine. 

These  were  sombre  things;  but  it  must  not  be 
imagined  that  they  reflected  the  general  tenor  of 
hospital  life.  The  Infirmary,  indeed,  was  so  vast 
as  to  be  microcosmic,  and  its  loves,  its  jealousies, 
and  its  ambitions  combined  to  produce  a  broad  ef- 
fect of  human  comedy,  not  without  tears,  but 
leavened  by  the  rich,  and  often  unprintable  humour 
that  flourished  in  the  out-patient  department.  Hos- 
pital politics,  hospital  scandals,  hospital  romances, 
combined  to  make  life  a  vivid  and  exciting  experi- 
ence. In  the  toils  of  the  last,  spring  found  W.G. 
securely  bound.  Harrop,  too,  had  launched  into  a 
desperate  affair  with  a  probationer  in  the  children's 
wards  whom  the  matron  promptly  transferred  to 
the  infectious  block  and  perpetual  quarantine.  Ed- 
win and  Boyce  escaped  this  epidemic  of  tenderness 
that  swept  through  the  fourth  year  like  measles. 
They  were  far  too  absorbed  in  their  own  interests 
and  discoveries  to  worry  their  hearts  about  any- 
thing in  a  nurse's  cap  and  apron. 

Spring  passed  in  a  swift  vision  of  plum-blossom 
in  the  Boyce's  Alvaston  garden  and  two  weeks  of 
musical  debauchery,  one  Wagnerian  and  the  other 
of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan.  Most  of  the  time  they 


THE  CLERK  421 

were  working  at  high  pressure;  but  a  week  before 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  examination,  Boyce 
proposed  that  they  should  cycle  down  together  to 
the  country  house  that  his  father  rented  in  Glouces- 
tershire, and  blow  away  the  vapours  of  forced  ven- 
tilation with  Cotswold  air. 

On  the  eve  of  an  examination  it  seemed  a  daring 
but  enthralling  plan.  Edwin  put  the  proposal  be- 
fore Mr.  Ingleby,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that 
he  didn't  object.  Indeed,  it  had  seemed  to  Edwin 
for  several  months  that  his  father  was  curiously 
distrait  and  less  interested  than  usual  in  his  work. 
This  consent  freed  his  conscience,  and  the  two 
friends  set  off  together  on  a  Saturday  afternoon  in 
the  spirit  of  abandoned  holiday  that  is  the  highest 
privilege  of  youth.  They  had  decided  to  take  no 
medical  books  with  them.  As  far  as  they  were 
concerned,  the  examination  might  go  hang;  for  a 
whole  week  they  would  live  with  no  thought  for  the 
morrow,  taking  long  rides  over  the  Cotswolds, 
lunching  at  village  inns  on  bread  and  cheese,  re- 
turning at  night  to  feasts  of  beans  and  bacon  and 
libations  of  Overton  cider. 

They  started  from  the  infirmary  at  half -past  two, 
and  had  soon  left  the  dust  and  tram-lines  of  North 
Bromwich  behind.  The  smooth,  wide  road  that  they 
followed  stretched  in  magnificent  undulations  over 
the  heights  of  the  Midland  plateau  from  which  they 
could  see  the  shapes  of  Uffdown  and  Pen  Beacon 
fading  into  the  west  under  a  pale,  black-country 
sky.  In  front  of  them  southward  the  sky  was 
blue. 


422         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"We're  in  for  ripping  weather,"  Boyce  shouted  as 
he  rode  ahead. 

The  weather  didn't  really  matter:  they  were  in 
for  a  great  adventure.  From  the  plateau  they  glided 
swiftly  to  the  vale  of  Kedditch,  and  when  they  had 
left  that  sordid  little  town  behind  they  climbed  the 
backbone  of  the  Ridgway,  where  the  road  follows 
the  thin  crest  of  a  line  of  small  hills  and  overlooks 
on  either  side  two  dreaming  plains.  In  a  blue  haze 
of  summer  these  green  dominions  lay  asleep,  so 
richly  scattered  with  dark  woodlands  that  no  hu- 
man habitation  could  be  seen.  They  were  as  lonely 
as  the  sky.  Westward  of  Severn  the  Glees  and  Mal- 
verns  towered  over  Wales;  but  Boyce  appeared  to 
be  more  interested  in  certain  lower  wooded  hills 
upon  the  eastern  side.  He  made  Edwin  the  con- 
fidant of  his  latest  romance. 

"She  and  I,"  he  said,  "used  to  bicycle  out  from 
Alvaston  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  .  .  .  about  an 
ho.ur  and  a  half's  easy  ride.  It  was  early  last  sum- 
mer. Those  woods  are  full  of  nightingales.  We 
used  to  sit  on  a  gate  and  listen  to  them  and  ride 
home  together  in  the  dark.  I  can  tell  you  it  was 
pretty  wonderful." 

Of  course  it  was  wonderful.  Everything  must  be 
wonderful  in  this  enchanted  country.  Riding  along 
in  the  afternoon  sunlight  Edwin  constructed  for 
himself  just  such  another  passionate  adventure; 
and  the  figure  with  which  he  shared  these  imaginary 
ecstasies  was,  for  want  of  a  better,  Dorothy  Powys. 
While  the  dream  nightingales  were  singing  their 
hardest  and  he  was  on  the  point  of  renewing  that 
unforgettable  kiss,  they  came  to  a  cottage  <half 


THE  CLERK  423 

timbered  and  lost  in  clematis  and  honeysuckle 
where  a  steep  road  fell  on  either  side  at  right  anglea 
to  the  ridge. 

"Eight,"  shouted  Boyce,  "we'll  take  the  road 
down  through  the  Lenches." 

"What  are  the  Lenches?"  said  Edwin,  riding 
abreast. 

"Villages.  Five  of  them,  I  think.  There's  Eous 
Lench  and  King's  Lench  and  Abbot's  Lench,  and 
two  others.  They're  a  proper  subject  for  a  poem." 

"Right-o  .  .  .  let's  collaborate,"  said  Edwin. 
"How's  this  for  a  beginning?" 

"As  I  was  riding  through  the  Lenches 
I  met  three  strapping  country  wenches." 

And  laughing  together,  they  constructed  a  series 
of  frankly  indecent  couplets,  recording  the  voy- 
ager's adventures  with  all  three.  It  was  a  matter 
of  the  most  complete  collaboration,  for  the  friends 
supplied  alternate  lines,  outdoing  one  another  in 
Eabelaisian  extravagance.  Edwin,  however,  pro- 
vided the  final  couplet,  which,  he  declared,  gave  the 
composition  literary  form : — 

"Home  to  my  vicarage  I  hasted 
Feeling  the  day  had  not  been  wasted." 

"A  parson  of  the  type  of  Herrick,"  said  Boyce. 

"Yea  .  .  .  but  more  serious." 

"That  kind  of  affair  is  awfully  serious  .  .  .  at  the 
time." 

The  gables  of  Evesham  and  its  one  tall  tower 
swam  in  a  golden  dust.  They  drank  cider  in  the 


424         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

inn  courtyard,  purchased  a  couple  of  Bath  chaps 
at  a  grocer's  and  crossed  the  Avon.  Through  an 
orchard  country  they  rode  in  that  hour  of  evening 
when  bird-song  is  most  wistful.  The  sun  went 
down  in  a  blaze  of  splendour  behind  Bredon  Hill. 
The  perfume  of  a  beanfield  swept  across  the  road. 

"Good  God,  isn't  it  good?"  said  Boyce.  "We  are 
nearly  there." 

A  village  of  Cotswold  stone  half  hidden  in  blos- 
soms of  crimson  rambler  received  them.  The  gar- 
dens were  full  of  sweet-williams,  pale  phloxes,  and 
tall  hollyhocks.  "Straight  on,"  Boyce  called. 

A  sign-post  pointed  up  the  hill  to  Overton.  They 
dismounted,  and  pushed  their  bicycles  up  a  steep 
lane  in  the  twilight.  Bats  were  flitting  everywhere, 
and  a  buff-coloured  owl  fluttered  heavily  between 
the  overarching  elms.  A  faint  tinkle  of  trickling 
water  came  to  their  ears. 

"That  is  the  sound  of  Overton,"  said  Boyce. 
"Slow  water  trickling  in  the  night." 

They  slept  together  in  the  low-beamed  room,  so 
soundly  that  the  sun  was  high  before  they  wakened 
next  morning. 

The  week  that  now  followed  was  the  very  crown 
of  youth.  The  Boyce's  summer  house  stood  upon 
a  patch  of  terraced  ground,  being  the  highest  of 
the  three  farms  round  which  the  hamlet  of  Overton 
clustered,  and  overlooked  the  blossomy  vale  of 
Evesham  bounded  by  the  Cotswold  escarpment, 
blue  and  dappled  with  the  shadows  of  cloud. 
"Parva  domus:  magna  quies"  read  the  motto  that 
Matthew's  father,  the  poet,  had  placed  above  the 
lintel  of  the  door :  "small  house :  great  quietness" — ' 


THE  CLERK  425 

and  indeed  it  seemed  to  Edwin  that  there  could  be 
no  quieter  place  on  earth. 

He  and  Matthew  would  smoke  their  morning 
pipes  together  on  a  stone  terrace  that  bleached  in 
the  sun  along  the  edge  of  a  garden  that  the  poet  had 
planted  for  perfume  rather  than  for  beauty  of 
bloom.  Here  they  would  sit,  nursing  books  that 
were  unread,  until  the  spirit  tempted  them  to  set 
out  towards  the  blue  escarpment,  and,  after  a  hard 
climb,  lose  themselves  in  the  trough  of  some  deep 
billow  of  Cotswold  and  fall  asleep  on  a  bank  of 
waving  grasses,  or  follow  some  runnel  of  the  Leach 
or  Windrush  until  it  joined  the  mother  stream, 
where  they  would  strip  and  float  over  the  shallows 
with  the  sun  in  their  eyes,  emerging  covered  with 
the  tiny  water  leeches  that  gave  one  of  the  rivers 
its  name. 

On  the  height  of  Cotswold  they  found  an  inn  that 
was  half  farm,  possessing  a  barrel  of  cider  that  Ed- 
win was  almost  ready  to  acknowledge  as  the  equal 
of  that  which  he  had  drunk  in  Somerset ;  and,  for 
further  attraction  a  huge  yellow  cat  beneath  the 
lazy  stare  of  whose  topaz  eyes  Matthew  sat  wor- 
shipping. In  the  evening  the  air  that  moved  over 
the  wolds  grew  cool  and  dry  and  more  reviving  than 
any  juice  of  yellow  apples,  and  with  their  lungs 
full  of  it  they  would  spin  down  the  winding  hills 
into  the  plain,  past  many  sweet-smelling  villages 
and  golden  manor-houses,  reaching  Overton  about 
sunset,  when  the  evening  stocks,  that  Mr.  Boyce 
had  planted  along  the  approaches  to  his  doorway, 
recovered  from  their  lank  indolence  and  drenched 


426        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

the  air  with  a  scent  that  matched  the  songs  of 
nightingales. 

There  Mrs.  Pratt,  the  wife  of  a  neighbouring 
labourer,  would  have  their  dinner  ready:  tender 
young  beans  and  boiled  bacon  and  crisp  lettuce 
from  the  garden  that  Matthew  dressed  according 
to  the  directions  of  his  epicurean  father;  and  with 
their  meal,  and  after,  they  would  drink  the  dry 
and  bitter  cider  made  at  the  middle  farm  from  the 
apples  of  orchards  that  now  dreamed  beneath  them. 

Then  came  music.  The  drawing-room  piano 
stood  by  the  open  window,  and  a  soft  movement 
of  air  disturbed  the  flames  of  the  candles  in  silver 
candlesticks  that  lighted  the  music  stand.  No  other 
light  was  there;  and  in  the  gloom  beyond,  Edwin, 
playing  the  tender  songs  of  Grieg  and  Schumann, 
and  the  prelude  to  Tristan,  would  see  the  long  legs 
of  Matthew  stretched  dreaming  on  a  sofa.  The 
nights  were  so  silent  that  it  seemed  a  pity  to  mar 
them  with  music ;  and  for  a  long  time  Edwin  would 
sit  in  silence  at  the  piano,  while  strong  winged 
moths  fluttered  in  out  of  the  darkness  and  circled 
round  the  candle's  flame.  Last  of  all,  before  they 
turned  in,  they  would  go  for  a  slow  walk  over 
meadows  cool  in  the  moonlight,  listening  to  the 
silence — "Solemn  midnight's  tingling  silentness," 
Matthew  quoted — or  to  the  gentle  creaking  of  the 
branches  of  elms,  now  heavy  with  foliage,  that  em- 
bosomed their  small  house. 

The  last  day  of  their  holiday  was  wet;  but  that 
made  no  great  difference  to  them,  for  a  succession 
of  showers  drew  from  the  drenched  garden  a  per- 
fume more  intense.  They  spent  the  day  in  musical 


THE  CLERK  427 

exploration,  and  when  the  darkness  came  they  sat 
together  talking  far  into  the  night.  They  talked  of 
North  Bromwich,  for  the  ponderable  influence  of 
the  morrow  had  already  invaded  their  quietude,  and 
of  their  future  work. 

"In  a  year's  time/7  said  Edwin,  "we  shall  be 
qualified." 

"What  shall  you  do?" 

"Oh,  general  practice,  I  suppose.  That's  the 
easiest  way  to  make  a  living.  It's  what  .most  men 
do." 

"I  don't  like  the  idea  of  it,"  said  Matthew.  "It's 
sordid,  unsatisfactory  work.  A  hard  living  in 
which  science  stands  no  chance.  Selling  bottles  of 
medicine — quite  harmless,  of  course,  but  unneces- 
sary— to  people  who  don't  really  need  them.  You 
have  to  do  it  to  make  a  living.  If  you  don't  the 
other  people  cut  you  out." 

"I  don't  think  it's  as  bad  as  that.  There  must 
be  something  fundamentally  good  about  medical 
practice.  You  are  actually  helping  the  people  who 
are  genuinely  ill." 

"That's  the  ideal  side  of  it.  But  there's  another. 
I  don't  think  I  shall  risk  it.  If  the  governor  can't 
let  me  have  enough  money  to  wait  for  consulting 
practice,  I  shall  have  a  shot  at  one  of  the  services. 
I  think  the  Indian  Medical  Service  is  the  thing. 
Fairly  good  pay,  a  chance  of  seeing  the  world,  and 
a  good  sporting  life." 

"India ?"  Edwin  had  never  thought  of  it. 

Sitting  there  in  an  English  dusk  the  idea  appealed 
to  him.  Great  rivers:  burning  plains  under  the 
icy  rampart  of  Himalaya :  strange,  dark  religions. 


428         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

India.  .  .  .  Yes,  it  sounded  good.  His  imagination 
went  a  little  farther  ahead.  A  hill-station  accord- 
ing to  'Kipling,  or  perhaps  a  more  solitary  canton- 
ment in  the  plains  where  the  commandant  was  a 
major  in  the  Indian  army  and  the  wife  of  the  com- 
mandant, a  girl  whose  name  had  once  been  Dorothy 
Powys.  And  the  major,  of  course,  would  succumb 
to  some  pernicious  tropical  disease  through  which 
Edwin  would  nurse  him  devotedly;  and  when  he 
was  dead  and  buried  his  beautiful  wife  would  come 
to  Edwin — the  only  other  Englishman  in  the  sta- 
tion, and  say:  "I  never  really  loved  him.  I  never 
really  loved  any  one  but  you."  Altogether  an  ex- 
tremely romantic  prospect.  .  .  .  Yes,  the  Indian 
Medical  Service  would  do  very  well.  .  .  . 

The  last  night  was  more  beautiful  in  its  silence 
than  any  other.  It  had  been  a  wonderful  week. 
There  would  never  be  another  like  it.  The  crown 
of  youth.  And,  as  it  came  to  pass,  the  end  of  youth 
as  well. 

m 

It  was  late  that  night  when  Edwin  reached  home. 
After  the  huge  openness  of  the  Cotswold  expanses, 
the  air  of  Halesby,  lying  deep  in  its  valley,  seemed 
to  him  confined  and  oppressive,  and  to  add  to  this 
impression  there  was  a  sense  of  thunder  in  it. 
After  supper  his  father  went  to  his  writing  desk 
and  pulled  out  a  sheaf  of  bluish,  translucent  papers 
which  he  spread  out  on  the  table,  and  began  to 
study  intently.  Edwin,  sprawling,  tired  and  con- 
tented, in  the  corner,  watched  him  lazily. 

"Whatever  have  you  got  there,  father?"  he  said. 


THE  CLERK  429 

"Plans  .  .  .  architect's  plans,"  Mr.  Ingleby  re- 
plied nervously. 

"Plans?  What  for?  Surely  you  aren't  thinking 
of  building  a  new  house." 

"Well,  not  exactly.  No  ...  I  am  thinking  of 
adding  to  this  one." 

"But  that  would  be  an  expensive  job.  Isn't  it 
big  enough  for  us?" 

"Yes.  It's  big  enough  at  present ;  but  it  may  not 
be  shortly." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

Edwin  laughed  uneasily,  for  he  could  not  under- 
stand this  air  of  mystery.  Mr.  Ingleby  rose  from 
his  plans  and  cleared  his  throat.  The  little  lamp- 
lit  room  immediately  became  full  of  an  atmosphere 
of  suppressed  intensity,  in  which  the  tick  of  the 
clock  could  be  heard  as  if  it  were  consciously  call- 
ing attention  to  the  importance  of  the  moment. 

"I  mean.  ...  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  intended 
telling  you  this  evening ;  but  I  found  it  difficult  to 
do  so,  because  .  .  .  because  I  could  not  be  quite 
sure  how  you'd  take  it.  It  ...  it  may  come  as  a 
shock  to  you.  I  am  thinking  of  enlarging  the  house 
because  I  am  proposing  to  be  married  again." 

"Married?    Good  God!" 

A  feeling  of  inexplicable  passion  choked  Edwin 
so  that  his  voice  did  not  sound  as  if  it  were  his 
own. 

"Yes,  I  knew  it  would  come  as  a  surprise  to  you. 
Probably  you'll  find  it  difficult  to  understand  my 
feelings.  You  mustn't  be  hasty." 

"Good  God !"  Edwin's  amazement  could  find  no 
other  words. 


430         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"You  are  the  first  person  I  have  told,  Edwin. 
I've  thought  a  good  deal  about  it  ...  about  you 
particularly,  and  I've  quite  satisfied  myself  that  I 
am  not  doing  you  any  injustice.  In  another  year 
I  suppose  you  will  be  going  out  into  the  world  and 
leaving  me.  Don't  decide  what  you  think  too 
hastily." 

He  paused,  but  Edwin  could  not  speak. 

"If  you'll  listen,  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it.  I 
think  you  will  approve  of  my  choice.  I'll  tell 
you " 


"For  God's  sake,  don't.    Not  now " 

"Very  well.  As  you  wish."  Mr.  Ingleby's  hands 
that  held  the  architect's  papers  trembled.  He 
smiled,  kindly,  but  with  a  sort  of  bewilderment. 
"As  you  wish,"  he  repeated. 

And  Edwin,  feeling  as  if  he  would  do  something 
ridiculous  and  violent  in  the  stress  of  the  curiously 
mingled  emotions  that  possessed  him,  went  quickly 
to  the  door  and  ran  upstairs  to  his  room,  where  he 
flung  himself  on  his  bed  in  the  dark. 

In  a  little  while  he  found  himself,  ridiculously, 
sobbing.  He  could  not  define  the  passionate  mix- 
ture of  resentment,  jealousy,  shame,  and  even 
hatred,  that  overwhelmed  him.  He  could  not  under- 
stand himself.  A  psycho-analyst,  no  doubt,  would 
have  found  a  name  for  his  state  of  mind,  describing 
it  as  an  "(Edipus  complex" ;  but  Edwin  had  never 
heard  of  psycho-analysis,  and  only  knew  that  his 
mind  was  ruthlessly  torn  by  passions  beyond  the 
control  of  reason.  He  made  a  valiant  attempt  to 
think  rationally.  Primarily,  he  admitted,  it  wasn't 
Ms  business  to  decide  whether  his  father  should 


THE  CLERK  431 

marry  again  or  remain  a  widower.  His  father  was 
a  free  agent  with  responsibilities  towards  Edwin 
that  were  rapidly  vanishing  and  would  soon  be 
ended.  He  couldn't  even  suggest  that  this  new 
marriage  would  be  the  ruin  of  any  vital  comrade- 
ship between  them,  for  the  hopes  of  this  ideal  state 
that  he  had  once  cherished,  had  not  been  realised 
during  the  last  few  years.  There  was  no  reason 
why  his  father's  marriage  should  affect  him  per- 
sonally, or  even  financially,  for  he  had  never 
reckoned  on  the  least  paternal  support  when  once 
he  should  be  qualified.  There  was  not  even  the 
least  suggestion  that  his  father  was  physically  un- 
suitable for  the  married  state,  for  there  was  no  rea- 
son why  he  should  not  live  for  many  years  to  come. 
There  were  actually  valid  arguments,  that  Edwin 
could  not  dispute,  in  favour  of  the  plan — such  as 
Mr.  Ingleby's  loneliness,  soon  to  be  increased,  and 
the  discomfort  that  he  had  suffered  as  an  elderly 
widower  at  the  hands  of  a  series  of  inefficient  house- 
keepers. From  every  point  of  view  the  world  would 
be  justified  in  concluding  that  he  was  doing  the 
correct  and  obvious  thing.  Why,  then,  should  Ed- 
win lie  on  his  bed  in  the  dark  wetting  his  pillow 
with  tears,  and  sick  with  shame? 

No  reason  could  assuage  his  suffering.  However 
calmly  he  tried  to  consider  the  matter,  the  thought 
of  his  mother  rose  up  in  his  mind ;  a  vision  of  her, 
beautiful  and  pathetic,  and  indefinitely  wronged, 
came  to  reinforce  his  indignation.  He  lit  a  candle 
and  gazed  for  a  long  time  at  her  photograph,  the 
one  that  he  had  always  kept  in  his  desk  at  St. 
Luke's  and  scarcely  noticed  for  the  last  three  years ; 


432         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

and  though  he  knew  that  she  was  dead  and  pre- 
sumably beyond  the  reach  of  any  human  passion, 
the  sight  of  her  features  filled  him  more  than  ever 
with  this  unconscionable  resentment  so  devastating 
in  its  intensity.  The  portrait  took  him  back  to  the 
tenderness  that  he  remembered  at  the  time  of  her 
death,  and  particularly  that  strange  moment  when 
he  and  his  father  had  knelt  together  in  the  little 
room  across  the  landing.  The  smell  of  Sanitas. . . . 

And  then  he  remembered  another  incident  in  the 
gloom  of  that  brown  room  at  the  Holloway  on  the 
windy  crown  of  Mendip,  whence  he  had  seen  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth.  Thinking  of  this,  he 
seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of  a  very  old  woman,  who 
said,  "The  Inglebys  are  always  very  tender  in 
marriage.  I've  seen  many  of  them  that  have  lost 
their  wives,  and  they  always  marry  again."  How 
could  she  have  known?  And  then  the  thought  of 
a  strange  woman  in  the  house,  treading  in  the 
places  where  his  mother's  steps  had  once  moved, 
swept  him  off  his  feet  again. 

"I  could  never  stay  here,"  he  thought.  "I  could 
never  stay  here.  ...  I  should  do  something  desper- 
ate and  cruel  and  unreasonable.  I  couldn't  help 
myself.  I  must  go.  It's  a  pity  .  .  .  but  I  must  go. 
I  couldn't  stay  here.  I  simply  couldn't." 

With  this  determination  in  his  mind,  but  with- 
out the  least  idea  of  the  way  in  which  it  might  be 
realised,  he  arrived  at  a  state  of  comparative 
serenity,  in  which  he  could  contemplate  his  mother's 
photograph  without  so  much  passionate  resentment 
at  the  slur  that  was  being  laid  on  her  memory.  Now 
he  saw  everything  in  terms  of  his  new  resolution. 


THE  CLERK  433 

He  saw,  pathetically,  the  little  bed  in  which  he  had 
slept  for  so  many  years,  the  shelves  on  which  his 
favourite  books  were  ranged,  the  piano  and  the 
sheaves  of  his  mother's  music  that  he  had  managed 
to  install  in  his  room:  all  the  small  details  that 
went  together  to  create  its  atmosphere  of  homeli- 
ness. 

"How  the  devil  shall  I  manage  to  leave  them?" 
he  thought.  He  went  to  the  window  and  saw,  be- 
yond the  garden  trees,  the  low  line  of  those  familiar 
hills:  the  landscape  that  he  had  always  delighted 
in  as  his  own,  and  that  now  was  to  be  his  no  longer. 
He  sighed,  for  to  leave  them  seemed  to  him  im- 
possible ;  they  were  so  familiar,  so  much  a  definite 
part  of  his  life.  A  curious  impulse  seized  him  to 
creep  downstairs  and  out  of  the  house,  and  visit 
the  grave  in  the  cemetery  where  his  mother  was 
laid;  but  he  restrained  himself  from  this  debauch 
of  sentiment,  "It  will  do  no  good,"  he  thought. 
"It's  all  over."  He  even  wondered  if  he  might  feel 
happier  if  he  went  down  to  Aunt  Laura's  house 
and  confided  in  her :  perhaps  she  would  understand. 
At  least  she  was  his  mother's  sister  and  might  be 
conscious  of  the  indignity ;  but  when  he  had  almost 
determined  to  do  this,  he  reflected  that  she  and 
his  uncle  were  probably  in  bed,  and  a  ludicrous 
picture  of  her  putting  her  head  out  of  the  window 
to  ask  what  was  the  matter,  with  her  hair  in  curl- 
ing pins,  restrained  him.  Besides,  it  would  be 
rather  ridiculous  to  fall  back  upon  the  sympathies 
of  a  person  whom  he  had  neglected  for  several  years. 

"No.  ...  I  must  go  on  my  own  way,"  he  thought. 
"It's  a  sort  of  break  in  my  life,  just  like  the  big 


434         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

break  before.    It's  got  to  be  faced,  and  it's  no  good 
worrying  about  it." 

He  suddenly  remembered  that  in  twelve  hours' 
time  he  would  be  sitting  for  his  fourth  examination, 
and  that  it  would  be  wise  for  him  to  get  some  sleep ; 
so  he  undressed  and  went  to  bed,  wondering  how 
many  more  times  he  would  undress  in  that  little 
room  and  caring  less  than  he  would  have  expected. 
He  fell  asleep  soon,  for  he  was  thoroughly  tired  out, 
and  slept  so  soundly  that  he  did  not  see  his  father 
enter  the  room  a  few  hours  later.  He  came  in 
softly,  in  his  dressing-gown,  carrying  a  candle,  and 
stooped  above  Edwin's  sleeping  figure  with  troubled 
eyes. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LOWER  SPAEKDALB 


NEXT  day,  in  a  fever  of  restlessness,  Edwin 
essayed  and  passed  his  fourth  professional  ex- 
amination. He  had  expected  to  get  a  first-class  in  it, 
but  when  he  found  himself  near  the  bottom  of  the 
list  in  the  neighbourhood  of  W.G.,  he  was  not  seri- 
ously disturbed.  The  subjects  of  Forensic  Medicine 
and  Toxicology  were  unimportant,  and  now  that  his 
life  had  taken  this  sudden  change  of  direction,  it 
did  not  much  matter  what  sort  of  a  degree  he  took. 
His  one  concern  was  to  get  qualified  and  licensed 
to  earn  his  living  on  the  bodies  of  his  fellow-men 
as  quickly  as  possible. 

Since  his  interview  with  his  father,  the  deter- 
mination to  leave  Halesby  had  not  faltered,  al- 
though he  had  not  then  calculated  the  difficulties 
that  now  faced  him.  To  begin  with,  he  had  no 
money  beyond  a  few  pounds  that  his  mother  had 
placed  to  his  credit  in  the  Post  Office  Savings  Bank 
in  his  childhood.  Luckily  his  college  and  hospital 
fees  had  been  paid  in  advance,  and  he  was  only 
concerned  with  the  actual  cost  of  living  and  the 
fees  for  the  final  examination.  In  some  way  or 
other  he  would  have  to  live  for  twelve  months,  and 
he  smiled  to  himself  to  think  that  he  was  in  very 

435 


436         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

much  the  same  position  as  his  father  had  occupied 
thirty  years  before. 

On  the  whole,  he  thought,  his  father  must  have 
had  less  cause  for  anxiety,  with  Dr.  Marshall's  two 
hundred  pounds  behind  him  and  the  humble  stand- 
ards of  a  village  boy  in  place  of  Edwin's  more  elabo- 
rate traditions  of  life.  He  felt  that  he  needed  the 
advice  of  a  sound  man  with  some  knowledge  of  the 
world.  In  an  emergency  of  this  kind  Matthew 
Boyce  could  offer  him  very  little  but  sympathy,  and 
so  he  turned  naturally  to  the  counsels  of  that  bat- 
tered warrior,  W.G.,  feeling,  at  the  same  time, 
rather  shabby  in  making  use  of  a  friend  whom  he 
had  practically  neglected  in  the  last  two  years. 

W.G.  providentially  didn't  look  at  it  in  that  light. 
He  had  always  regarded  Edwin  from  a  fatherly 
standpoint,  and  the  mere  fact  that  this  was  a  case 
of  rebellion  against  domestic  authority  of  the  kind 
in  which  he  had  been  engaged  since  his  childhood 
made-  him  sympathetic,  though  he  didn't,  as  Edwin 
saw  to  his  despair,  appreciate  the  delicacies  of  the 
situation. 

"I  can  quite  see  why  you  want  to  cut  adrift,"  he 
said.  "It's  a  feeling  that  any  one's  who's  dependent 
gets,  if  he  has  any  guts  in  him;  but  I'm  damned 
if  I  see  any  cause  or  just  impediment  why  these 
two  persons  shouldn't  enter  into  holy  matrimony." 

"I  suppose  it's  just  rotten  sentimentality.  Still 
...  I  can't  help  it.  There  it  is.  It's  the  idea  of 
seeing  another  woman  in  my  mother's  place.  I 
simply  couldn't  stick  it,  W.G." 

"Well,  old  chap,  I'm  quite  prepared  to  believe 
you  know  best.  The  thing  is,  what  are  you  going 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  437 

to  do?  You  can't  live  on  nothing  in  this  hard  world. 
You  can  share  my  bed  for  a  week  or  two  if  you 
like.  I'm  sorry  it  won't  be  for  longer ;  but  marriage 
appears  to  be  in  the  air.  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I'm 
going  to  get  married  myself." 

"You  married?  .  .  .   Good  Lord!  What  on  earth 

IP 

are  you  doing  that  for?" 

"I  don't  know.  Force  of  circumstance,  I  sup- 
pose. It's  one  of  the  things  that  happens  when 
you  least  expect  it." 

"Do  I  know  her,  W.G.?" 

"Oh,  yes  .  .  .  you  know  her.  It's  Sister  Merrion 
in  Number  Twelve." 

There  came  to  Edwin  a  vision  of  a  tall,  dark 
girl,  with  wavy  brown  hair  and  Irish  eyes,  whom 
he  couldn't  help  remembering  at  the  infirmary. 

"I  didn't  even  know  that  you  were  friendly." 

"We  weren't  until  about  three  weeks  ago.  I  hap- 
pened to  notice  that  she  was  looking  rather  down 
in  the  mouth,  and  took  her  out  to  tea ;  and  then  the 
poor  girl  broke  down  at  the  Dousita  and  told  me 
all  about  her  home  affairs.  It's  the  devil  and  all 
to  see  a  pretty  girl  like  that  crying.  She'd  been 
having  a  thin  time  of  it  at  home  with  her  father: 
a  pretty  rotten  sort  of  fellow,  I  gathered,  and  that 
seemed  the  only  way  out  of  it.  So  we're  going  to 
be  married  next  month.  A  sort  of  fellow-feeling, 
you  know." 

"But  .  .  .  Good  Lord  .  .  .  are  you  in  love  with 
her?" 

"Ot  course  I  am,  you  old  ass.  I  shouldn't  marry 
her  if  I  wasn't.  It'll  be  a  bit  of  a  pinch  till  I'm 
qualified,  though." 


438         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"I  say,  I  hope  you'll  be  happy." 

A  sudden  pang  of  something  like  envy  over- 
whelmed Edwin.  The  picture  of  settled  peace,  ro- 
mantic love  in  a  cottage,  that  W.G.  was  about  to 
share  with  the  undeniably  beautiful  Sister  Merrion 
struck  him  as  an  ideal  state. 

"You're  a  lucky  devil,  W.G.,"  he  said. 

It  seemed  unreasonable  that  W.G.  should  devote 
himself  to  the  smaller  problem  of  Edwin's  ways  and 
means  on  the  eve  of  such  a  momentous  adventure. 
It  hardly  seemed  fair  to  bother  him. 

"We're  going  into  rooms  in  Alvaston  at  first," 
he  said.  "It'll  be  less  expensive  than  furnishing, 
and  we  don't  intend  to  indulge  in  a  family  for  the 
present.  Meanwhile,  if  I  were  you,  I  should  go  and 
talk  to  the  manager  at  Edmondson's.  He  may  be 
able  to  put  you  on  to  something.  Yes  .  .  .  have 
a  shot  at  him  first,  and  mention  my  name,  he's  a 
very  decent  sort." 

Edwin  laughed  to  himself.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
he  was  in  the  grip  of  a  curiously  ironical  fate,  for 
Edmondson's  was  the  identical  firm  of  wholesale 
druggists  with  whom  his  father  had  been  employed 
on  his  first  arrival  at  North  Bromwich.  History 
was  repeating  itself  in  a  way  that  was  proper  to 
romance. 

In  the  afternoon  he  went  down  to  Edmondson's 
and  asked  for  the  manager,  a  vigorous  person  with, 
shrewd  eyes  that  he  screwed  up  habitually  when- 
ever he  made  a  point  in  his  conversation.  He  called 
Edwin  "Doctor" :  a  form  of  address  that  was  flatter- 
ing, until  Edwin  realised  that  it  was  no  more  than 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  439 

a  habit  with  him.    "Ingleby,"  he  said ;  'let  me  see, 
I  know  the  name." 

"Probably  you  know  my  father.  He's  in  business 
at  Halesby." 

"Ah,  yes,  of  course  .  .  .  your  father.  Come  along 
to  my  room,  doctor,  and  have  a  cigar." 

In  this  varnished  chamber,  decorated  with  a  col- 
lection of  barbarous  surgical  instruments,  survivals 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  Edwin  unbosomed  himself.  The 
manager  listened  in  silence,  screwing  up  his  eyes, 
from  time'  to  time*  to  show  that  he  was  taking  in 
Edwin's  story. 

"Well,"  he  said  at  the  end  of  it.  "Do  you  want 
me  to  tell  you  what  I  think  of  it,  doctor?  Candidly, 
you  know." 

Edwin  was  only  too  anxious  for  another  opinion. 
"Well,  I  think  you  don't  know  when  you're  well 
off.     To  tell  you  the  truth,  doctor,  I  think  you're 
a  damned  fool.    That's  straight.     See?" 

"I'm  not  surprised,"  said  Edwin.  "Still,  I've 
made  up  my  mind.  I'm  not  going  to  stay  at  home. 
I  can't  do  it,  that's  all.  I'm  only  wondering  if  you 
can  put  me  in  the  way  of  a  job  of  some  kind." 

"Well,  doctor,  that's  easier  said  than  done.  When 
you're  qualified,  it'll  be  a  different  matter  alto- 
gether. I  think  I  can  promise  to  keep  you  in  <lo- 
cums'  at  four  or  five  guineas  a  week,  as  long  as 
you  like  to  take  them;  but  I  can't  honestly  say 
there's  anything  for  you  at  present.  It's  not  like 
the  old  days  when  doctors  were  allowed  to  keep 
unqualified  assistants." 

"I'm  through  my  fourth  exam.,  you  know.  I  could 
do  dispensing." 


440         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Dispensing.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  hadn't  thought  of  that. 
Well,  doctor,  I'll  see  what  I  can  do  for  you.  You 
know  what  I  think  of  it,  don't  you?  In  the  mean- 
time you'd  better  leave  your  address.  No  good 
writing  to  Halesby,  I  suppose?" 

Edwin  gave  him  the  address  of  W.G.'s  diggings, 
and  went  off,  hopelessly  discouraged,  to  find  his 
friend.  W.G.,  however,  was  at  present  far  too  en- 
grossed in  the  charms  of  Sister  Merrion  to  be  avail- 
able. So  Edwin  went  on  to  the  Boyce's  house  in 
Alvaston,  only  to  find  that  Matthew  had  cycled 
down  to  Overton  again  with  his  father.  It  was 
impossible  for  him  to  settle  to  any  work;  so  he 
took  an  afternoon  train  to  Halesby,  at  a  time  when 
he  knew  his  father  would  be  busy  at  the  shop,  and 
collected  the  few  belongings  that  he  felt  he  must 
take  with  him. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  house  was  inexpressibly 
poignant.  Within  its  walls,  he  reflected,  dwelt  the 
ghost  of  all  his  childhood,  and  memories  of  his 
mother,  that  had  lain  submerged  in  his  conscious- 
ness for  many  years,  rose  to  meet  him  wherever  he 
went.  Well,  he  would  never  see  the  place  again. 
This  exile,  it  pleased  him  to  think,  was  his  final 
sacrifice  to  her  memory.  That  was  the  best  way 
in  which  he  could  express  it.  At  the  worst,  an- 
other voice  whispered,  it  was  an  excess  of  mawkish 
.sentiment. 

All  through  the  afternoon,  and  particularly  when 
tie  disinterred  small  pieces  of  the  lumber  that  he 
Jiad  collected  in  his  schooldays,  this  sense  of  a 
ghostly  childhood  haunted  him.  It  followed  him 
jdown  the  stairs  into  the  hall,  where  the  grandfather 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  441 

clock  ticked  steadily  as  it  had  ticked  ever  since 
he  could  remember,  into  the  dead  drawing-room, 
soon  to  be  made  alive  by  the  tastes  of  another  femi- 
nine personality ;  on  the  lawn,  where  the  limes  were 
shedding  their  sticky  bloom;  on  the  way  to  the 
station,  when  he  lugged  his  bag  through  the  gnarled 
shadows  of  Mrs.  Barrow's  ancient  garden,  and 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  old  lady's  kindly  nodding 
bonnet  as  she  smiled  at  him  from  her  place  in  the 
window,  where  she  sat  hermetically  sealed  in  an 
atmosphere  of  Victorian  decay. 

There  were  the  reedy  pools  and  Shenstone's  hang- 
ing woods,  ghostly  waters  and  woodlands,  never 
to  be  seen  again.  And  there  was  the  platform  of 
Halesby  station,  reeking  of  hot  coal  dust  and  ashes, 
and,  from  the  incoming  train,  a  flux  of  shabby  peo- 
ple, including  the  bank-clerk  in  tennis  flannels  and 
the  mysterious  commercial  traveller  with  the  brown 
leather  bag,  reading  the  Pink  }Un  as  he  walked. 
From  this,  through  the  black-country's  familiar  des- 
ert, the  train  carried  him  into  the  bitter  reality  of 
North  Bromwich.  With  something  approaching  the 
feelings  of  an  intruder  he  installedhimself  inW.G.'s 
diggings,  and  made  a  supper,  undeniably  pleasant, 
of  bread  and  cheese  with  a  large  bottle  of  W.G.'s 
beer.  The  latter,  which  happened  to  be  Astill's 
XXXX,  induced  a  mood  of  tolerant  sleepiness,  and 
luckily  prepared  him  to  receive,  at  midnight  or 
thereabouts,  the  confidences  of  his  friend  on  the 
subject  of  Sister  Merrion's  intellectual  charms. 

"You  know,  old  chap,  she's  different  from  me — 
reads  poetry  by  the  hour  when  she's  in  the  bunk  on 
night  duty.  Longfellow's  her  favourite.  A  long 


442         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 
>  i 

way  above  my  head  and  all  that ;  but  it's  a  wonder- 
ful thing,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  to  be  mar- 
ried to  an  intellectual  woman.  ..."  So  the  words 
poured  into  Edwin's  drowsy  ears.  He  was  far  too 
sleepy  to  smile,  and,  Longfellow  apart,  it  did  seem 
to  him  a  comfortable  and  even  enviable  thing  to  be 
the  adored  centre  of  the  universe  in_the  Irish  eyes 
of  a  tender  creature  with  wavy  brown  hair  and  a 
painful  domestic  tragedy.  W.G.  was  still  moralis- 
ing on  his  past  wickedness  and  the  prospect  of  a 
blameless  future  when  Edwin  fell  asleep. 


Next  morning  he  was  awakened  by  his  friend, 
boisterous  and  ruddy  from  a  bath,  performing  a 
strange  ritual  of  prostrations  and  contortions  in 
front  of  an  open  window  discreetly  veiled  with  flut- 
tering butter-muslin.  Edwin  lazily  watched  the 
sinuous  play  of  muscles  under  the  shaggy  limbs  of 
W.G.  through  half-closed  eyelids. 

"You'd  make  a  topping  subject  for  dissection, 
W.G.,"  he  said. 

"Hallo!"  W.G.  answered  from  between  his  legs. 
"You  awake,  you  old  slacker?  There's  a  letter  for 
you  that  came  up  with  the  tea.  Tea's  cold,  by  the 
way." 

"Thanks,"  said  Edwin,  as  W.G.  skimmed  the  let- 
ter over  to  him.  "Good  Lord,  it's  from  Edmond- 
son's." 

It  was  a  note  hastily  scribbled  advising  Edwin 
to  go  at  once  and  see  Dr.  Altrincham-Harris  at  563 
Lower  Sparkdale,  North  Bromwich,  between  nine 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  443 

and  ten  a.m.,  or  six  and  nine  p.m.,  and  signed  by 
the  manager  who  screwed  his  eyes  up. 

"Five  hundred  and  sixty-three,  Lower  Spark- 
dale,"  Edwin  groaned.  "I  say,  that  sounds  pretty 
bad.  Altrincham-Harris  is  rather  hot  stuff  for 
Lower  Sparkdale,  isn't  it?  Queer  place  for  a  double- 
barreler." 

"General  practitioner,"  said  W.G.,  rubbing  him- 
self down  with  a  pair  of  flesh-gloves.  "They  all  go 
in  for  hyphens.  It  impresses  the  lower-middle 
classes.  When  I  go  into  practice,  my  son,  I  shall 
be  known  as  Dr.  William  George-Brown,  if  I 
can  afford  the  extra  letters  on  a  plate." 

"Lower  Sparkdale's  a  pretty  awful  slum,  isn't 
it?" 

"Never  been  there.  It's  time  you  cleared  off  to 
the  bathroom.  You'll  feel  better  when  you're 
awake." 

Edwin  spent  the  morning  in  writing,  and  four 
times  rewriting,  a  letter  to  his  father.  It  was  a 
difficult  job,  for  he  felt  that  the  reasons  for  his 
departure  could  not  be  explained  in  words,  and  he 
was  particularly  anxious  to  make  it  clear  that  it 
was  purely  a  matter  of  temperament  and  that  he 
didn't  wish  it  to  imply  any  criticism  of  Mr.  Ingle- 
by's  plans.  When  he  had  finished  it  he  found  that 
it  was  far  too  late  to  visit  the  surgery  of  Dr.  Al- 
trincham-Harris.  He  therefore  waited  till  the 
evening,  and  then  took  a  steam-tram  through  a 
succession  of  sordid  streets,  past  the  public  abat- 
toirs and  the  newly-opened  Kowton  House,  to  the 
level  of  563  Lower  Sparkdale. 

The  extreme  end  of  that  street  was  not  as  bad 


444         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

as  he  had  imagined  it  might  be,  for  at  this  point 
the  slum  ended,  resolving  itself  into  the  edge  of  a 
growing  suburb  of  red-brick.  Number  563  was  a 
corner  house  secretively  curtained  with  dirty  mus- 
lin on  flat  brass  rods.  A  shining  plate  revealed  the 
qualifications,  such  as  they  were,  of  C.  Altrincham- 
Harris,  Physician  and  Surgeon,  and  as  the  front 
door  seemed  to  have  sunk  into  a  state  of  disuse, 
Edwin  entered  at  another,  marked  "Surgery," 
round  which  a  number  of  poorly-clad  women,  some 
of  them  carrying  babies,  were  clustered. 

Inside  the  door  was  a  narrow  waiting-room  that 
concentrated  into  an  incredibly  small  number  of 
cubic  feet  the  characteristic  odour  of  an  out-patient 
department.  Every  seat  was  occupied,  and  Edwin, 
deciding  to  wait  for  his  turn,  stood  listening  to  a 
varied  recitation  of  medical  history  that  every  pa- 
tient seemed  compelled  by  the  surroundings  to  re- 
late to  her  neighbour.  At  the  moment  when  he  en- 
tered a  very  stout  woman,  who  had  been  drinking, 
had  the  ear  of  the  company,  talking  loudly  over  the 
shoulder  of  a  pasty  child  whose  neck  was  covered 
with  the  pin-points  that  fleas  make  on  an  insensi- 
tive skin,  and  occasionally,  in  accessions  of  tender- 
ness, hugging  it  to  her  bosom. 

"So  I  says  to  the  inspector  .  .  .  yes,  inspector, 
>e  'ad  the  nerve  to  call  'isself  .  .  .  says  I,  you  can 
take  your  summonses  to  'ell,  I  says.  I  love  my 
children,  I  says.  There's  more  love  for  the  little 
'armless  things  in  my  finger  than  there'll  ever  be 
in  your  bloody  body,  I  says.  And  I  caught  'er  up 
and  carried  'er  straight  along  'ere  to  the  doctor. 
Doctor  'Arris  knows  me,  I  says,  and  what's  more 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  445 

'e  shall  'ave  a  look  at  Margaret's  'ead  with  'is  own 
eyes.  Shan't  'e,  my  pretty?"  The  child  wriggled 
as  she  was  clasped  in  another  beery  embrace. 

A  bell  tingled  inside.  "Now  we  shall  see,"  said 
the  lady  determinedly  rising.  "And  'ave  a  stifflcate 
if  it  costs  me  two  shillin's." 

The  room  murmured  low  applause  and  sympathy, 
and  she  entered  the  surgery,  emerging,  two  minutes 
later,  with  the  testimonial  in  her  mouth. 

"What  did  I  tell  yo'?"  she  said.  "The  doctor 
says  there  ain't  one.  Not  one.  It's  time  these  in- 
spectors was  done  away  with.  I  only  'ope  'e  will 
summons  me.  Good-night,  all." 

She  went  out,  hugging  the  child  in  both  arms, 
and  a  pale  woman,  respectably  dressed,  who  had 
sat  through  her  tirades  in  silence,  took  her  place  in 
the  doctor's  consulting  room.  Dr.  Altrincham- 
Harris  didn't  keep  her  long.  She  came  out,  like 
the  rest  of  them,  after  an  interview  that  lasted  per- 
haps two  minutes,  carrying  a  bottle  of  medicine 
wrapped  up  in  one  of  the  papers  that  are  called 
comic.  Again  the  bell  rang. 

"Good  God,"  Edwin  thought,  "and  this  is  general 
practice!"  It  was  evident  that  he  had  entered  a 
world  in  which  the  academic  methods  of  diagnosis 
and  prescription  with  which  he  had  been  educated 
were  not  followed.  On  the  surface  it  was  quite 
clear  that  the  physician  could  not  have  given  an 
eighth  part  of  the  usual  time  or  care  to  the  con- 
sideration of  any  single  case.  He  remembered  in- 
stances of  hospital  patients  who  had  affected  to 
despise  the  perfunctoriness  of  the  methods  of  the 
Prince's  out-patient  department,  and  had  boasted 


446         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

that  they  would  receive  better  attention  from  the 
hands  of  a  "private  doctor."  He  hoped  to  goodness 
that  none  of  these  unfortunate  people  would  drift 
into  the  hands  of  Dr.  Altrincham-Harris. 

His  own  turn  came,  and  relieved  to  be  rid  of  the 
stink  of  the  waiting-room,  he  entered  the  surgery. 
Dr.  Harris  was  sitting  in  an  attitude  of  impatience 
behind  a  desk  littered  with  papers.  He  was  a  little 
man,  with  grey,  untidy  hair  and  a  drooping  mous- 
tache. He  held  a  pencil  in  his  hand,  as  if  he  were 
itching  to  dash  off  another  prescription,  and  an 
open  drawer  in  the  desk  at  his  right  hand  was  full 
of  small  silver.  When  he  saw  that  Edwin  was  bet- 
ter dressed  than  the  majority  of  his  patients,  his 
manner  changed  at  once.  "Please  sit  down,"  he 
said.  "Now,  what  can  I  do  for  you?" 

Edwin  hesitated,  for  he  found  it  difficult  to  be- 
gin. Dr.  Harris  encouraged  him  with  a  wink,  and 
a  grip  of  his  left  arm. 

"Now,  my  boy,  you  needn't  be  frightened  of  me. 
You'll  find  the  doctor's  your  best  friend.  Had  a 
bit  of  bad  luck,  eh?  Well,  you're  not  the  first,  and 
you  won't  be  the  last." 

The  wink  was  the  most  disgusting  part  of  this 
performance,  but  Edwin,  quickly  recovering  his 
sense  of  humour,  pulled  out  Edmondson's  letter 
and  handed  it  to  the  doctor. 

"Well,  now,  why  didn't  you  say  so  at  first,"  said 
Dr.  Harris,  scratching  a  bristly  grey  chin.  "Yes  .  .  . 
I  did  mention  to  their  manager  that  I  was  in  want 
of  some  one  to  do  a  bit  of  rough  dispensing  and 
keep  this  place  tidy.  You  see  I  don't  live  here.  It's 
what  we  call  a  lock-up,  and  the  work's  so  pressing 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  447 

•that  I've  really  no  time  to  do  my  own  dispensing. 
I  suppose  you  hold  the  Apothecaries'  Hall  Diploma 
— passed  your  exams  and  that?" 

"No  .  .  .  I'm  a  medical  student.  I  took  phar- 
macology in  my  last  exam.  I'm  in  my  final  year." 

"Hm  ...  I  shouldn't  have  thought  it.  You  look 
very  young.  Final  year  .  .  ."  Then  his  eyes  bright- 
ened. "Have  you  done  your  midwifery  yet?" 

"Xo,  I  shall  do  that  later  in  the  year." 

"That's  a  pity  ...  a  pity.  You  could  have  been 
very  useful  to  me  in  that  way,  keeping  cases  going, 
you  know,  so  that  I  could  be  in  at  the  finish.  I 
could  do  twice  the  amount  of  midwifery  that  I  do 
now  if  I  had  some  one  to  keep  an  eye  on  them. 
Before  the  General  Medical  Council  did  away  with 
unqualified  assistants,  I  used  to  keep  three  of  them : 
paid  me  well,  too.  Now  I've  got  to  do  everything 
myself.  It's  a  dog's  life,  but  there's  money  in  it, 
I  don't  mind  telling  you.  Well,  there's  no  time  to 
waste.  What  do  you  want?" 

"I  want  a  place  to  live  in  and  my  keep,  and  just 

enough  money  to  keep  me  going  till  I'm  qualified. 

That's  all.    You'll  understand  .  .  .  I'm  on  my  own, 

and  I've  just  about  ten  pounds  to  carry  me  over 

^a  year.    I  hope  you  can  give  me  a  job." 

"I  suppose  you  could  take  a  hand  with  dressings 
:and  things  like  that?" 

Edwin  saw  that  the  little  man  was  out  for  bar- 
gaining, but  as  long  as  he  could  feel  that, some- 
thing was  being  settled  he  didn't  really  mind. 

"Yes  ...  I  can  do  anything  you  like  to  use  me 
for  in  your  surgery  hours.  I  can't  promise  more. 
Tou  see,  I  have  to  pass  my  final." 


448         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"You  can  learn  a  lot  of  useful  things  about  gen* 
eral  practice  here,"  said  Dr.  Harris.  "It  should 
be  extremely  useful  to  you.  You  see,  I've  been  at 
this  game  for  thirty  years.  It's  a  great  chance  for 
you."  He  took  up  a  handful  of  silver  from  the 
open  drawer  and  started  to  jingle  it.  "Look  here, 
you're  wasting  time." 

Edwin  agreed. 

"Well,  suppose  I  take  you  on,  I  might  be  able 
to  give  you  three  .  .  .  better  say  two  pounds  a 
month.  You  can  feed  up  at  my  place  and  sleep 
here.  If  you  sleep  here,  you'll  be  able  to  take  night- 
messages  and  telephone  them  up  to  me.  There's  a 
bedroom  fitted  up.  One  of  my  assistants  used  to 
sleep  here.  How  will  that  suit  you?" 

With  a  feeling  of  intense  relief  Edwin  accepted. 

"Very  well,  then,  there's  no  reason  why  you 
shouldn't  begin  at  once,  just  to  get  into  the  way 
of  things."  He  paused,  and  added  as  an  after- 
thought: "We'll  count  that  you  start  from  to- 
morrow." 

He  led  Edwin  behind  the  green  baize  curtain  at 
the  back  of  his  desk,  disclosing  a  set  of  shelves  and 
a  counter  stained  with  the  rings  of  bottles  and 
measuring  glasses.  At  the  end  of  the  counter  was* 
a  sink  into  which  a  tap  with  a  tapered  nozzle 
dripped  dismally.  One  drawer  held  labels,  another 
corks,  a  third  a  selection  of  eight-ounce,  four-ounce, 
and  two-ounce  bottles.  At  the  back  of  the  counter 
stood  a  row  of  Winchester  Quarts,  of  indefinite  con- 
tents, labelled  with  the  Roman  numerals  from  one 
to  nine.  Dr.  Harris  swabbed  the  swimming  coun- 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  449 

ter  with  a  rag  that  was  already  saturated  with 
medicines. 

"You  can  learn  all  you  want  in  five  minutes,"  he 
said.  "There's  no  time  for  refinements  in  this  sort 
of  practice.  These  big  bottles  are  all  stock  mix- 
tures, and  whatever  they  teach  you  in  your  uni- 
versities, I  can  tell  you  that  these  nine  mixtures 
will  carry  you  through  life.  There  you  are  .  .  . 
Number  One :  White  Mixture.  Number  Two :  Soda 
and  Rhubarb.  Number  Three :  Bismuth.  You  have 
to  go  easy  with  Number  Three:  Bismuth's  expen- 
sive. Number  Four:  Febrifuge  .  .  .  Liquor  Am- 
mond  Acet :  and  that.  Number  Five:  Iron  and 
Mag. :  Sulph.  And  so  on.  .  .  .  Number  Nine :  Mer- 
cury and  Pot :  lod  .  .  .  you  know  what  that's  for," 
with  a  laugh,  "we  use  a  lot  of  that  here.  Now 
you've  one  ounce  of  each  stock  mixture  to  an  eight- 
ounce  bottle,  and  a  two-tablespoonful  dose.  I  used 
to  put  them  up  in  six-ounce  bottles ;  but  if  you  give 
them  eight  ounces  they  think  they're  getting  more 
for  the  money:  they  don't  realise  they're  getting 
eight  doses  instead  of  twelve,  and  that's  their  look- 
out, isn't  it?  Same  proportions  for  children  and 
infants,  only  you  use  the  four  and  two-ounce  bot- 
tles instead,  with  dessert-spoon  and  teaspoonful 
doses.  Simple,  isn't  it?  But  you  want  to  simplify 
if  you're  going  to  make  money  in  these  days.  Now, 
is  that  quite  clear?" 

"Quite  clear." 

"Well,  then,  when  a  patient  comes  in  I  have  a 
look  at  him — with  my  experience  you  can  tell  in  a 
moment — and  I  give  you  a  slip  of  paper  behind  the 
.curtain.  Like  this.  'Mrs.  Jones.  No.  5.  T.D.S.' 


450         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Mrs.  means  an  eight-ounce  bottle.  One  ounce  of 
Number  Five  stock  mixture.  One  tablespoonful 
three  times  a  day.  Then,  if  I  put  '4tis  horis'  in- 
stead of  'T.D.S.,'  it  means  a  tablespoonful  every 
four  hours ;  but  I  only  do  that  when  I  see  they  can 
afford  to  get  through  the  bottle  more  quickly. 
You'll  find  powders  in  that  drawer.  Antifebrin — 
it's  cheaper  than  phenacetin  and  caffein.  And  calo- 
mel for  children.  Then,  as  I  wras  saying,  while  I 
have  a  look  at  the  patient  and  ask  him  one  or  two 
questions  you  make  up  the  medicine." 

"Suppose,  when  you've  had  a  talk  to  him,  you 
change  your  mind  about  the  treatment." 

"I  never  change  my  mind.  There's  no  time  for 
that,"  said  Dr.  Harris.  "And  if  I  did  we  could 
change  the  medicine  next  time.  But  you  needn't 
worry  about  the  treatment:  that's  my  part  of  the 
business.  Why" — and  the  little  man  expanded — 
"I  shouldn't  wronder  if  we  got  through  as  many  as 
a  hundred  patients  in  a  couple  of  hours,  the  two 
of  us  together.  Now,  are  you  ready?" 

He  left  Edwin  behind  the  curtain  and  rang  his 
bell.  A  patient  entered,  and  as  soon  as  the  doctor 
had  said  good-evening  to  her  the  prescription  was 
passed  behind  the  curtain  and  Edwin  proceeded  to 
fill  a  bottle  from  one  of  the  Winchester  Quarts.  This 
business  went  on  monotonously  for  another  hour. 
Edwin  dispensed  mechanically  in  a  kind  of  dream. 
He  never  saw  a  single  patient;  but  little  scraps  of 
conversation  showed  him  that  most  of  them  were 
suffering  from  the  evils  of  poor  housing  and  a 
sedentary  life.  It  consoled  him  to  think  that  most 
of  the  mixtures  that  he  dispensed  were  relatively 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  451 

harmless.  Sometimes,  by  an  access  of  solicitude 
and  deference  in  the  doctor's  voice,  he  could  gather 
that  the  patient  was  of  a  higher  social  degree,  and 
he  smiled  to  find,  in  these  cases,  that  the  mixture 
was  invariably  prescribed  in  four-hourly  doses. 

All  the  men,  it  appeared,  were  judged  to  be  in 
need  of  White  Mixture  or  Rhubarb :  all  the  women 
demanded  Iron  and  Mag:  Sulph:  all  the  children 
were  treated  with  a  treacly  cough  mixture  or  calo- 
mel powders.  In  the  space  of  an  hour  he  must 
have,  dispensed  at  least  forty  bottles  of  medicine, 
and  towards  the  end  of  the  evening  he  noticed  that 
Dr.  Harris  became  even  more  perfunctory  in  his 
examinations — if  such  a  word  were  ever  justified — 
and  that  signs  of  irritation  began  to  show  them- 
selves in  his  voice.  At  last  the  waiting-room  bell 
rang  twice,  and  no  patient  appeared. 

"That's  the  lot,"  said  Dr.  Harris,  appearing  from 
behind  the  curtain.  "I  think  I'll  have  a  wash."  It 
was  the  first  time  that  he  had  washed  his  hands 
in  the  whole  of  the  evening.  "Well,  you  see  what 
it's  like,"  he  said,  "I  think  I'll  have  a  nip  of 
whisky."  He  produced  a  vitriolic  bottle  from  a 
cupboard  and  mixed  some  whisky  with  water  in  a 
medicine-measure. 

"A  good  average  day,"  he  said.  "Three  pounds 
ten."  He  shovelled  the  silver  from  the  drawer  into 
a  leather  bag  that  weighed  down  his  coat  pocket. 
"That  takes  a  lot  of  making  at  a  shilling  a  time. 
Well,  how  do  you  like  it?" 

"I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  manage,"  said  Edwin, 
who  was  not  anxious  to  commit  himself. 

"You'd  better  come  and  see  your  room." 


452         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

It  was  a  bare  bedroom  on  the  first  floor  with  iron 
bedstead  and  a  dejected  washhand-stand,  but  it 
seemed  to  Edwin  that,  at  least,  it  would  be  quiet 
and  free  from  distractions.  "I  shall  be  able  to  read 
here,"  he  thought,  "and  after  all,  it's  only  for  twelve 
months." 

"Not  much  to  look  at,"  said  Dr.  Harris  apologeti- 
cally. "I'll  send  you  down  some  bedding  to-night. 
I'll  expect  you  for  breakfast  at  eight  o'clock  sharp. 
You'd  better  come  along  and  have  some  supper 
now." 

"I  think  I'd  better  go  and  collect  some  of  my 
things.  I've  been  staying  with  a  friend  in  his  dig- 
gings." 

"All  right.  As  you  like,"  said  Dr.  Harris.  "Nine 
o'clock  sharp  to-morrow  morning  then?  You  have 
to  be  punctual  if  you're  to  make  money  in  this 
business." 

Edwin  said  good-night,  keeping  the  key  of  the 
surgery.  When  the  doctor  had  gone  he  went  back 
into  the  curtained  dispensary  and  tried  to  introduce 
a  little  order  into  the  waste.  A  strange  life,  he 
thought  ...  a  strange  and  degrading  life.  If  this 
were  general  practice,  he  wondered  why  he  had 
ever  despised  his  father's  trade,  for  surely  there 
was  more  dignity  in  selling  tooth-brushes  than  in 
dealing  so  casually  with  the  diseases  of  human  be- 
ings. "I  must  talk  it  over  with  old  W.G.,"  he 
thought.  "He's  a  sound  man."  But  he  knew  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart  that  he  couldn't  afford  to  specu- 
late on  the  ethics  of  the  case.  All  that  mattered 
to  him,  for  the  present,  was  the  necessity  of  find- 
ing a  roof — any  roof  to  shelter  him  and  food  to 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  453 

keep  him  alive.  He  was  a  beggar,  and  could  not 
choose,  and  had  every  reason  to  be  thankful  for  this 
or  any  solution  of  his  difficulties. 

"It  sounds  bad,"  said  W.G.,  when  Edwin  had  ex- 
panded on  the  refinements  of  Dr.  Harris's  medicine, 
"but,  in  a  way,  you're  lucky  to  have  fallen  on  your 
feet  so  quickly.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  you  don't 
deserve  it.  You're  an  old  fool  to  have  left  home, 
you  know.  Now,  there's  some  chance  of  your  ap- 
preciating how  comfortable  you  were." 

Boyce  was  more  sympathetic,  entering  with  great 
pains  and  seriousness  into  the  cause  of  Edwin's 
spiritual  nausea.  The  results  of  it  pleased  him  in 
so  far  as  they  meant  that  in  future  Edwin  would 
be  living  in  North  Bromwich,  and  promised  a  per- 
petuation of  the  delightful  comradeship  that  they 
had  enjoyed  in  the  summer.  "I  expect  we  shall 
see  a  lot  of  you,  old  boy,"  he  said,  "ambrosial  eve- 
nings, you  know." 

Edwin  laughed.  "The  evenings  won't  be  exactly 
ambrosial.  I  shall  be  earning  my  two  pounds  a 
month  filling  eight-ounce  bottles  with  rubbish  at 
a  shilling  each.  I  shall  feel  like  compounding  in 
a  felony.  It's  the  devil  .  .  ." 

m 

And  it  was  pretty  bad.  No  more  concerts  or 
operas;  no  week-ends  at  Overton;  no  dinners  at 
Joey's;  no  possible  diversion  of  any  kind  that  im- 
pinged upon  the  hours  between  six  and  nine.  And 
yet  Edwin  was  happy.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
and  at  a  price,  he  was  realising  what  independence 
meant.  Even  the  break  at  Halesby  had  passed  off 


454         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

without  any  severe  emotional  disturbance.  He  had 
written  to  his  father  again,  telling  him  his  new 
address  and  what  he  was  doing,  and  his  father  had 
replied  in  his  formal  business  hand,  not,  indeed, 
with  any  offer  of  help,  but  with  an  implied  approval 
of  what  he  had  done,  enclosing  a  number  of  bills 
(opened)  and  a  couple  of  second-hand  book  cata- 
logues. 

There  was  nothing  unfriendly  in  the  letter,  no 
heroics  of  outraged  paternity.  Eeading  between 
the  lines,  Edwin  felt  that  by  consulting  no  interests 
but  his  own  he  had  made  an  awkward  situation 
easy  for  his  father.  In  that  case,  he  reflected,  Mr. 
Ingleby  might  very  well  have  made  him  an  allow* 
ance.  It  gave  him  a  sense  of  grim  satisfaction  to 
remember  that  he  was  still  a  minor  and  that  even 
if  he  were  too  proud  to  use  it,  he  still  held  the 
weapon  of  his  father's  legal  responsibility  rh  re- 
serve, but  the  next  moment  he  was  ashamed  of  this 
reflection :  when  it  came  to  a  point  the  element  of 
pathos  in  his  father's  history  and  person  always 
disarmed  him. 

It  was  enough  that  he  should  be  happy,  princi- 
pally for  the  reason  that  his  days  were  so  full  and 
any  moments  of  relaxation  came  to  him  with  a 
more  poignant  pleasure  than  any  he  had  known 
before.  He  had  very  little  time  for  reading  out- 
side the  subjects  of  his  final  exam.,  that  now  over- 
whelmed him  with  an  increasing  weight.  For 
pleasure  he  read  little  but  lyrical  poetry,  finding 
his  chief  enjoyment  in  the  last  hour  before  he  fell 
asleep  in  Dr.  Harris's  empty  lock-up,  with  a  copy 
of  Mackail's  selections  from  the  Greek  Anthology 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  455 

that  he  had  salved  from  one  of  the  second-hand 
bookstalls  in  Cobden  Street. 

In  spite  of  himself,  he  was  beginning  to  like 
Charles  Altrincham-Harris.  He  didn't  for  one 
moment  alter  his  opinion  of  the  degradation  to 
which  the  man  had  subjected  the  nobilities  of  his 
calling,  his  meanness  and  his  avarice.  In  his  deal- 
ings with  the  unfortunate  people  who  came  to  the 
shilling  doctor  for  treatment,  he  still  abhorred  him ; 
he  knew  him  to  be  a  person  whose  mind  was  a  sink 
of  pseudo-professional  prurience,  and  whose  body 
and  habits  were  unkempt  and  unclean;  but  for  all 
this,  he  could  not  deny  the  fact  that  in  his  rela- 
tions with  his  dispenser  he  displayed  a  curious  vein 
of  natural  kindness,  and  that  his  ideals,  apart  from 
his  loathsome  business,  were  of  a  touching  sim- 
plicity. 

Every  morning  they  met  at  breakfast.  The  doc- 
tor believed  in  good  food  as  a  basis  for  work,  and 
his  housekeeper,  a  small,  shrewish  woman  of  fifty, 
was  an  excellent  cook.  At  the  breakfast  table  he 
would  impart  to  Edwin  the  more  salacious  para- 
graphs of  the  morning  paper,  which  he  always 
opened  at  the  page  that  contained  the  records  of 
the  divorce-court.  He  took  no  notice  of  politics. 
"They  can  do  what  they  like  as  long  as  they  don't 
legislate  about  us"  And  though  Edwin  felt  sin- 
cerely that  the  sooner  his  kind  were  legislated  for, 
the  better,  he  was  thankful  that  his  employer  was 
not  a  political  bore  or  bigot. 

After  breakfast  Dr.  Harris  always  smoked  a  clay 
pipe  in  his  carpet  slippers,  a  present  from  a  patient 
who,  for  some  unimaginable  reason,  had  been  grate- 


456         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ful.  Then  they  would  walk  down  to  563  Lower 
Sparkdale  together  in  the  fresh  morning  air,  and 
the  combination  of  gentle  exercise  with  deeper 
breathing  would  impel  the  little  man  to  make 
Edwin  the  confidant  of  his  ambitions. 

"Twelve  thousand  pounds,"  he  would  say,  "that's 
all  I  want.  Twelve  thousand  pounds.  Five  hun- 
dred a  year.  Then  I  shall  find  a  quiet  little  place 
in  the  country  and  have  a  rest.  Keep  bees  and 
poultry:  that's  what  I  shall  do,  and  smoke  a  pipe 
in  the  garden  in  the  evening  when  the  poor  devil 
that  buys  my  practice  is  going  down  to  the  surgery 
to  rake  in  the  shillings." 

In  these  moments  he  would  reflect  on  the  begin- 
ning of  his  career.  "I  took  a  good  degree,  you  know. 
You  wouldn't  think  it  to  look  at  me  now,  would 
you?  No  ...  I  had  bad  luck,  and  a  bad  wife, 
which  is  the  worst  sort  of  luck.  She  lost  me  my 
practice,  and  so  I  grew  sick  of  medicine.  I  couldn't 
be  bothered  with  the  social  side  of  it.  Money  was 
what  I  wanted :  money  and  quiet.  And  so  I  took 
a  dose  of  medicine :  fifteen  years  at  a  shilling  a  bot- 
tle, with  advice  thrown  in,  and  then  a  quiet  life. 
That  was  all  I  wanted.  And  I've  very  nearly  got 
it.  Another  year  or  two  will  make  me  secure. 
Security  .  .  .  that's  what  I  wanted.  Well,  here  we 
are.  .  .  ." 

So  the  morning's  work  began,  and  no  morning, 
as  far  as  Edwin  could  see,  was  different  from  any 
other.  He  was  thankful  when  the  clock  struck  ten, 
and  Dr.  Harris  ruthlessly  locked  his  surgery  door. 
Then,  fortunately,  he  was  obliged  to  take  the  next 
tram  to  the  hospital ;  for  if  he  had  lingered,  as  he 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  457 

was  sometimes  forced  to  do  on  Sundays,  Dr.  Harris 
would  have  lit  his  pipe  and  proceeded  to  regale  him 
with  anecdotes  of  medical  experiences  that  always 
related  to  sex,  on  which  he  dwelt  with  a  slow,  de- 
liberate satisfaction,  like  a  dog  that  nuzzles  a  piece 
of  garbage. 

The  aspects  of  medical  science  that  related  to 
sex  were  the  only  ones  in  which  he  was  really  in- 
terested. He  possessed  an  expensive  and  eclectic 
library  of  books  on  these  subjects,  to  which  he  was* 
always  adding  others  that  he  bought  from  the  col- 
porteurs of  medical  pornography  who  are  continu- 
ally pestering  the  members  of  his  profession.  These 
he  would  pore  over  at  night,  when  Edwin  was  provi- 
dentially engaged  in  reading  for  his  final.  "Medi- 
cine is  an  extremely  interesting  profession  from 
that  point  of  view,"  he  would  say,  and  indeed  the 
dispenser  soon  discovered  that  this  aspect  of  the 
medical  profession  supplied  Dr.  Harris  with  a  great 
number  of  his  patients.  In  the  squalid  underways. 
of  the  city  he  had  established  a  reputation  for  skill 
and  discretion  in  the  treatment  of  contagious  dis- 
ease, and  the  unfortunate  victims  who  came  to 
Lower  Sparkdale  from  more  reputable  suburbs 
were  ready  to  pay  through  the  nose  for  his  advice. 

One  night,  hearing  behind  his  curtain  the  over- 
tures of  one  of  these  cases  that  he  knew  so  well,  he 
suddenly  became  aware  of  a  tone  that  was  familiar 
in  the  patient's  voice.  Listening  more  closely  he 
could  have  sworn  it  was  the  voice  of  Griffin. 
Evidently  it  was  a  person  of  some  consequence,  for 
Dr.  Harris  devoted  as  much  as  five  minutes  to  his 
examination. 


458         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"I  suppose  you  wouldn't  like  a  prescription?" 

"No,  you'd  better  make  it  up  for  me,"  said  the 
voice  that  resembled  that  of  Griffin. 

"Certainly  .  .  .  delighted." 

Dr.  Harris  breathed  heavily,  as  he  always  did 
when  writing  a  prescription,  and  then  passed  the 
slip  of  paper  behind  the  curtain  to  Edwin.  Edwin, 
looking  at  once  for  the  name  at  the  head  of  the 
prescription,  was  disappointed.  The  patient  had 
preferred  to  remain  anonymous.  He  dispensed  the 
medicine,  and  when  Dr.  Harris  had  said  good-bye 
to  the  patient  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of 
looking  from  behind  the  curtain  to  verify  his  sus- 
picions. He  could  only  see  the  back  of  the  depart- 
ing patient,  but  the  suspicion  filled  him  with  a 
queer -sensation  of  awe. 

It  showed  him  a  new  aspect  of  medicine  that  had 
never  occurred  to  him  in  hospital  life,  but  would, 
no  doubt,  be  present  often  enough  in  private  prac- 
tice. Griffin  was  a  person  well  known  to  Edwin 
and  his  friends,  a  person  about  whose  adventures 
and  their  consequences  he  would  easily  and  nat- 
urally have  spoken.  If  he  had  retailed  the  incident 
to  Maskew  and  W.G.  in  the  Dousita,  it  would  have 
been  the  occasion  of  a  little  pity  and  probably  some 
irreverent  mirth.  But  he  saw  at  once  that  he  could 
do  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  had  become,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  the  keeper  of  a  professional 
secret.  For  the  rest  of  the  world,  however  inter- 
ested, Griffin  and  Griffin's  disease  must  not  exist. 

Edwin  felt  the  weight  of  a  new  responsibility, 
reflecting  that  in  his  future  life  he  would  in  all 
probability  become  possessed  of  many  such  secrets 


LOWER  SPARKDALE  459 

and  that  there  might  be  occasions  on  whicn  his 
sense  of  duty  would  be  divided  between  the  tra- 
ditional discretion  of  Hippocrates  and  the  instincts 
of  humanity.  He  invented  a  hypothetical  case  for 
his  own  confusion.  Supposing  he  had  a  sister  to 
wrhom  Griffin  was  engaged:  supposing  that  they 
were  going  to  be  married  in  a  week  after  this  un- 
comfortable knowledge  had  come  into  his  posses- 
sion, endangering  the  whole  of  her  future  happiness 
and  perhaps  her  life:  what,  in  that  case,  should: 
be  his  attitude  towards  the  question  of  professional 
secrecy?  What  would  he  do?  Would  he  be  justi- 
fied in  telling  her  what  he  knew?  Hippocrates  said 
"No";  but  Hippocrates'  refusal  narrowed  the  field 
of  possibilities  to  confronting  Griffin  with  his  own 
shame  and  threatening  him  with  .  .  .  what?  Not 
with  exposure — for  that  Hippocrates  forbade.  Obvi- 
ously with  death.  And  that  would  be  murder.  .  .  . 

Balancing  the  relative  heinousness  of  murder 
and  perjury,  Edwin  began  to  laugh  at  himself,  and 
while  he  did  this  a  curious  reminiscence  came  into 
his  mind :  the  picture  of  a  small  boy,  who  resembled 
him  in  very  little  but  had  been  himself,  lying  in  the 
hedge  side  of  Murderer's  Cross  Road,  on  the  downs 
above  St.  Luke's,  reflecting  on  the  same  problem  of 
the  justification  of  homicide  and  saying  to  himself 
as  he  brooded  on  his  wrongs:  "I  can  quite  easily 
understand  a  chap  wanting  to  murder  a  chap."  And 
this  picture  tempting  him  further,  he  relapsed  into 
a  dream  of  those  strange,  remote  days  tinged  with 
extremes  of  happiness  and  misery,  and  both  of 
them  unreal.  .  .  . 

He  thought  no  more  of  Griffin. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EASY  ROW 


FOR  a  whole  year  Edwin  inhabited  the  room 
above  the  lock-up  surgery  in  Lower  Sparkdale. 
It  was  a  happy  year,  for  into  it  was  crowded  a 
great  wealth  of  experience  and  elevating  discovery 
to  which  the  mechanical  drudgery  of  Dr.  Harris's 
dispensing  room  acted  as  ballast.  In  his  medical 
studies  he  began  to  feel  for  the  first  time  the  fruits 
of  his  earlier  labours:  to  realise  that  all  medicine 
was  little  more  than  an  intelligent  application  to 
life  of  the  theoretical  subjects  that  he  had  mastered 
without  reasoning.  From  the  very  first  day  of  his 
experience  in  the  dissecting  room  there  was  nothing 
in  all  that  he  had  learnt  that  had  not  its  direct 
bearing  on  his  present  practice;  and  the  reflection 
that  he  possessed  all  this  essential  knowledge  ready 
for  use  was  exhilarating  in  itself.  Again,  the  fact 
that  he  was  now  standing  on  his  feet,  actually  earn- 
ing his  own  living,  gave  him  a  greater  happiness 
than  he  had  ever  known  in  his  days  of  dependence ; 
it  made  him  accept  the  routine  of  Lower  Sparkdale 
as  a  penance,  cheering  him  with  the  thought  that 
so  much  sacrifice  was  really  necessary  before  he 
should  be  master  of  himself. 

He  was  lonely;  but  this  seemed  inevitable,  for 
460 


EASY  ROW  461 

no  person  in  his  senses  could  be  expected  to  grind 
along  in  a  steam-tram  to  Lower  Sparkdale  for  the 
sake  of  his  company;  and  the  final  year  was  too 
full  of  strenuous  studies  for  all  of  them  to  allow 
of  much  indulgence  in  the  joys  of  friendship.  Mat- 
thew Boyce  made  a  few  heroic  attempts.  He  even 
spent  several  evenings  in  Harris's  dispensary,  find- 
ing the  shilling  doctor's  clinical  and  commercial 
methods  something  of  a  joke.  They  were  no  joke 
to  Edwin:  he  had  recognised  long  ago  that  they 
were  no  more  than  Harris's  solution  of  the  problem 
of  living.  The  doctor  saw  nothing  unworthy  in 
them.  He  did  his  best,  within  his  limited  knowl- 
edge, for  his  patients.  He  was  kind,  and  even,  on 
occasion,  generous.  If  there  were  fault  to  be  found 
it  must  be  with  the  State  that  allowed  such  igno- 
rant men  to  deal  with  precious  human  bodies^  and 
not  with  him.  When  the  first  humour  of  the  ex- 
perience was  exhausted  Boyce  came  to  the  surgery 
no  more.  Little  by  little  Edwin's  insulation  became 
more  complete,  and  in  the  end  he  relapsed  into  the 
degree  of  loneliness  that  he  had  known  in  his  early 
days  at  St.  Luke's. 

Given  the  opportunity,  he  almost  enjoyed  it. 
There  was  something  remote  and  secret  about  this 
little  room  in  the  corner  house  above  the  grinding 
trams,  and  when  the  surgery  emptied  at  night  and 
he  went  upstairs  to  work  he  would  find  himself 
suddenly  overwhelmed  with  a  feeling  of  thankful- 
ness for  the  fact  that  it  was  so  peculiarly  his :  that 
his  own  books  and  pictures  and  clothes  had  made  it 
individual  and  different  from  any  other  room  in 
the  whole  of  the  city.  And  when  the  town  slept^ 


462         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

and  he  sat  on  reading  into  the  early  hours  of  the 
morning,  the  lonely  chamber  was  like  a  lighthouse 
set  in  seas  of  night,  and  dreams  of  the  misty  lands 
beyond  Severn,  of  Mendip  couched  in  darkness,  or 
of  the  sleeping  wolds  by  Overton,  would  beat  at 
Ms  lighted  window  like  seabirds  in  the  night. 

At  first  the  sacrifices  that  his  poverty  demanded 
had  seemed  no  more  than  part  of  a  new  and  excit- 
ing game.  It  was  some  months  before  he  realised 
that,  literally,  he  could  not  afford  the  indulgence 
of  a  single  pleasure  that  cost  money.  If  he  were 
to  free  himself  from  the  bondage  of  Dr.  Harris's 
dispensary  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  he 
should  save  enough  money  to  pay  his  examination 
fees.  He  began  to  find  a  new  delight  in  carefully 
hoarded  shillings,  and  this  practice  threw  him  into 
a  curious  sympathy  with  his  employer.  Each  of 
them,  on  a  different  scale,  was  committed  to  a  pres- 
ent sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  future  freedom;  and 
this  reflection  reconciled  him  in  some  degree  to  the 
inconveniences  that  Dr.  Harris's  miserly  ways  in- 
flicted on  him. 

It  was  galling,  none  the  less,  to  find  that  he  could 
not  afford  to  buy  a  single  new  book,  to  hire  a  piano, 
or  to  hear  any  music  except  the  free  recitals  by 
which  the  municipal  organist  convinced  the  citizens 
of  North  Bromwich  that  they  were  getting  some- 
thing for  their  money,  in  debauches  of  sound  that 
reminded  them  how  much  the  organ  had  cost. 
Sometimes,  to  Edwin's  joy,  he  played  the  fugues 
of  the  Well-tempered  Clavier,  and  on  their  wide 
streams  he  would  be  carried  from  springs  of  moun- 
tain sweetness,  by  weir  and  cataract  to  solemn  tidal 


EASY  ROW  463 

waters  and  lose  himself  at  last  in  seas  of  absolute 
music.  Time  after  time  lie  thanked  God  for  Bach, 
and  walked  home  to  his  garret  like  a  man  who  has 
gazed  upon  the  splendour  of  a  full  sea  and  carries 
its  tumult  in  his  mind  far  inland. 

Through  all  these  experiences  Edwin  was  so  pos- 
sessed by  the  one  idea  of  holding  on  until  his  final 
exam,  was  over  that  he  scarcely  missed  the  society 
of  his  friends.  He  knew  that  his  friendship  with 
Boyce  was  founded  too  deeply  in  common  experi- 
ence ever  to  be  shaken  by  his  own  changed  circum- 
stances :  it  might  lapse,  but  it  could  never  be  broken. 
He  always  felt  that  the  future  held  more  for  them 
than  the  past  had  ever  given ;  but  his  other  friends, 
Maskew  and  Martin  in  particular,  seemed  to  have 
been  translated  to  another  place  of  existence.  In 
the  wards  and  in  the  lecture  theatres  he  would  meet 
them;  but  elsewhere  they  had  nothing  in  common 
with  his  way  of  existence. 

Even  W.G.  seemed  gradually  to  be  slipping  away 
from  him — an  unreasonable  state,  for  Edwin,  after 
all,  was  now  for  the  first  time  sharing  something 
of  the  big  man's  early  experience.  For  several 
months  they  had  scarcely  spoken,  and  then,  one 
day,  nearly  ran  into  each  other's  arms  in  Sackville 
Row,  and  almost  mechanically  wandered  off  to  the 
Dousita  together.  In  the  shades  of  the  smoking- 
room  nothing  had  changed.  When  they  sank  into 
the  cushions  of  their  favourite  corner  Miss  Wheeler 
approached  them  with  an  exact  replica  of  the  smile 
with  which,  four  years  before,  she  had  engaged  the 
heart  of  Maskew;  and  when  she  took  their  order, 
she  stood  on  one  leg  in  exactly  the  same  position, 


464         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

leaning,  with  a  hint  of  tiredness  that  was  not  sur- 
prising in  a  young  woman  who  habitually  breathed 
tobacco  smoke  in  place  of  oxygen,  with  her  hand 
on  the  curtain  at  the  side  of  their  settee. 

"I  never  see  Mr.  Maskew  now,"  she  said  with  a 
sigh.  "I  can't  think  whatever  'as  happened  to  all 
you  boys,  I'm  sure." 

She  brought  them  coffee,  and  W.G.,  who  had 
scarcely  spoken,  but  whose  knitted  brows  testified 
to  the  pressure  of  some  urgent  problem,  said : — 

"Well,  how  do  you  like  it?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Being  on  your  own." 

"Oh,  it's  all  right,"  said  Edwin. 

"I  never  thought  you'd  stick  it,"  W.G.  confessed. 
"I  didn't  think  you  had  it  in  you.  You  see,  in  your 
case  there  was  never  the  least  necessity  for  it." 

"There  was,  you  know " 

"I  could  have  understood  it  if  you'd  had  a  regular 
bust-up.  I  should  certainly  have  stayed  at  home 
if  the  governor  hadn't  booted  me  out.  You  never 
had  anything  of  that  kind." 

"No  .  .  .  not  exactly.  But  the  position  was  the 
same.  I  had  a  sort  of  ...  of  emotional  cold-douche. 
I  was  awfully  sensitive  about  my  mother.  My  fa- 
ther and  I  were  all  wrong.  We'd  really  nothing  in 
common.  And  it's  turned  out  all  right.  That's  the 
main  thing." 

"You're  a  quixotic  ass,  my  son.  No  .  .  .  that's 
not  the  word,  but  it's  the  same  sort  of  thing.  It 
was  really  damned  foolish  of  you." 

"It's  jolly  sound  to  stand  on  your  own  feet.  Yon 
know  where  you  are  for  the  first  time.  It  was  only 


EASY  ROW  465 

uncomfortable  because  he  was  really  awfully  de- 
cent. He  is  now:  but  he  hasn't  the  faintest  glim- 
mering of  my  point  of  view." 

"They  rarely  have,"  said  W.G.  gloomily.  "Still, 
you  haven't  made  such  an  ass  of  yourself  as  I 
have." 

"Something  new?" 

"Yes  .  .  .  I'm  married." 

"Good  God!" 

"It  isn't  as  bad  as  that,"  W.G.  chuckled.  "I 
thought  it  would  come  as  a  bit  of  a  shock  to  you." 

"But  why  on  earth ?" 

"Well,  you  see  she  wras  awfully  unhappy  at  home. 
Brute  of  a  father.  And  we  simply  got  tired  of 
waiting.  That's  all.  You  must  come  and  see  us. 
She  always  remembered  your  clerking  in  her  ward. 
We're  living  in  furnished  rooms  in  Alvaston.  It's 
an  amazing  experience,  you  know,  marriage.  Quite 
different  from  anything  else  of  the  kind."  In  view 
of  W.G.'s  experience  in  these  matters  Edwin  was 
ready  to  take  this  for  granted. 

"I  should  think  it  is  a  damned  funny  thing,"  he 
said. 

They  parted.  There  was  something  almost  pathet- 
ic to  Edwin  in  W.G.'s  hot  handclasp.  He  felt  that 
W.G.  was  up  against  something  far  bigger  than 
anything  that  had  happened  to  him  before:  a 
strange,  momentous  adventure,  yet  one  that  was 
thrilling  and,  in  a  way,  enviable.  Once  again  he 
found  himself  admiring  the  big  man's  desperate 
daring.  W.G.  with  a  wife,  and  probably,  in  a  few 
years,  children !  .  .  .  Assuredly  they  were  all  grow- 
ing old. 


466         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

n 

In  all  that  summer  Edwin  scarcely  saw  a  patch 
of  living  green  except  the  leprous  plane-trees  that 
sickened  in  the  hospital  square.  The  current  of 
his  life  flowed  slowly  through  the  culverts  of  grimy 
brick  that  led  from  Lower  Sparkdale  to  the  Infir- 
mary. He  became  part  of  the  stream  of  dusty  hu- 
manity that  set  citywards  and  back  again  with  the 
regularity  of  a  tide.  In  December  he  came  to  the 
end  of  his  penance.  The  final  examination  was 
fixed  for  the  beginning  of  January,  and  before  he 
could  sit  for  it,  he  was  compelled  to  take  a  course 
of  practical  midwifery,  twenty  cases  in  all,  which 
compelled  his  residence  for  a  couple  of  weeks  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  Prince's  Hospital,  the  in- 
stitution to  which  this  department  was  attached. 
Matthew  Boyce  and  he  had  decided  a  year  before 
that  they  would  do  this  work  together,  and  though 
the  unusual  strain  of  the  fortnight  in  Easy  Bow 
would  be  a  doubtful  preliminary  to  the  effort  of 
the  final  examination,  the  two  friends  had  always 
looked  forward  to  the  experience. 

The  authorities  of  the  Prince's  Hospital,  lacking 
obstetrical  wards,  had  made  this  course  the  oppor- 
tunity for  establishing  an  Out-patient  Department 
that  could  deal  with  ten  cases  a  week  at  the  nominal 
charge  of  five  shillings  each.  The  students  worked 
in  pairs,  and  though  they  could  never  be  sure  of 
attending  their  cases  together,  the  resident  staff  of 
the  hospital,  and,  if  necessary,  a  consultant  phy- 
sician, were  always  available  in  case  of  an  emer- 
gency. Edwin  and  Boyce  were  housed  in  one  of 


EASY  ROW  467 

the  faded  Georgian  buildings  that  faced  the  hos- 
pital. Its  lower  stories,  like  those  of  all  its  neigh- 
bours, were  devoted  to  theatrical  lodgings;  but  a 
special  night-bell,  polished  by  the  moist  hands  of 
forty  anxious  husbands  every  month,  communicated 
with  the  upper  room  in  which  the  resident  students 
attempted  to  sleep.  The  house  was  as  well  known. 
to  all  the  poorer  people  in  the  neighbouring  war- 
rens as  were  the  faces  pale  with  sleeplessness  of 
the  students  who  issued  from  it,  carrying  the  black 
bags  that  were  symbolical  of  their  labours,  a  source 
of  mysterious  speculation  to  the  children  of  the 
district,  and  of  amusement  to  the  "professionals" 
who  inhabited  the  front  rooms. 

On  a  Monday  morning  in  December  the  landlady 
received  Edwin  and  Boyce  and  installed  them  in  a 
small  room  at  the  back  of  the  ground-floor  infested 
with  portraits  of  smiling  young  ladies  in  tights, 
inscribed,  with  the  most  dashing  signatures  imagin- 
able, to  herself.  Mrs.  Meadows  was  evidently  very 
proud  of  these  decorations  and  called  attention  to 
the  most  blatant  pair  of  legs  by  polishing  the  glass 
of  their  frame  with  her  apron. 

"I  hope  you  gentlemen  will  be  comfortable,"  she 
said.  "Not  that  I  doubt  it.  I  don't  have  many 
complaints."  The  statement  was  a  challenge,  and 
implied  that  if  there  should  be  any  complaints  the 
lodgers  might  look  to  themselves. 

"It's  a  nice  fresh  room,"  she  said,  throwing  open 
a  French  window  that  disclosed  a  small  patch  of 
black  earth  that  had  once  been  covered  with  grass 
but  was  now  untenanted  by  any  living  organisms 
but  cats  and  groundsel. 


468         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"I  like  them  to  keep  the  window  open.  It  takes 
away  the  smell  of  the  gentlemen's  disinfectant.  Not 
but  what  it's  clean,  I  dare  say." 

Edwin  and  Boyce  would  have  assented  in  any 
case  if  it  were  only  to  release  the-composite  lodging- 
house  smell  that  penetrated  the  room  from  the  ad- 
joining "domestic  offices,"  and  Mrs.  Meadows's 
kitchen  where,  it  would  be  imagined,  turnip-tops 
simmered  day  and  night  upon  a  gas-ring. 

"Then  there's  a  pianoforte,"  she  said,  hesitating 
at  the  dusty  portiere.  "I  find  that  professionals 
like  a  pianoforte.  It's  cheery  like." 

In  a  little  while  it  became  apparent  that  the  pro- 
fessionals liked  a  pianoforte,  in  every  one  of  the 
thirty  odd  houses  within  earshot,  even  if  they  could 
not  play  one.  From  the  hour  of  midday,  when  they 
rose,  until  six  o'clock,  when  they  betook  themselves 
to  their  various  theatres,  the  pianos  of  Easy  How 
were  never  silent. 

"It's  no  good  trying  to  do  any  work  in  this  place," 
said  Edwin. 

"There  won't  be  any  time,  anyway,"  said  Boyce. 
"You  wait  till  the  fun  begins." 

They  lunched  together  on  steak-and-kidney  pud- 
ding and  turnip-tops  with  a  brand  of  bottled  beer 
in  which  Mrs.  Meadows  showed  an  admirable  taste, 
and  in  the  early  afternoon  the  fun  began. 

From  the  beginning,  Fate  had  decreed  a  compli- 
cation by  deciding  that  Mrs.  Hadley,  back  of  num- 
ber four,  court  sixteen,  Granby  Street,  and  Mrs. 
Higgins  over  number  fifty-four  Rea  Barn  Lane, 
should  conspire  to  increase  the  population  of  North 
Bromwich  at  the  same  moment.  Mr.  Hadley  and 


EASY  ROW  469 

Mr.  Higgins  achieved  a  dead  heat,  arriving  on  the 
doorstep  together  in  a  dripping  perspiration  with 
messages  of  an  equal  urgency. 

"This  is  rather  rotten,"  said  Boyce.  "Which  of 
these  ladies  will  you  take?" 

"I'll  have  Mrs.  Higgins,"  said  Edwin.  "I  suppose 
the  bag's  all  right?" 

The  bag  was  right  enough,  though  it  contained 
very  little  that  could  do  any  harm,  and  smelt  abomi- 
nably of  Lysol.  Mr.  Higgins,  still  out  of  breath, 
with  beads  of  sweat  sweeping  an  alluvium  of  metal 
dust  into  the  furrows  of  his  cheeks,  carried  the 
bag  for  Edwin.  For  all  his  exhaustion,  Mr.  Hig- 
gins wanted  to  run,  and  Edwin,  walking  with  long 
strides  beside  him,  was  in  danger  of  losing  his  dig- 
nity by  being  swept  into  the  same  degree  of  panic. 
The  reflection  that  this  would  betray  his  inexperi- 
ence held  him  back.  , 

"The  nurse  said  very  urgent,  doctor,"  Mr.  Hig- 
gins panted. 

"Yes  .  .  .  yes.  You  mustn't  excite  yourself .  It'll 
be  all  right." 

"I  suppose,"  said  Mr.  Higgins  doubtfully,  "you're 
well  up  in  these  sort  of  cases,  doctor?  I  expect 
you've  seen  a  lot  of  them?" 

Edwin  wished  he  had  been  able  to  grow  a  mous- 
tache for  the  occasion. 

"Hundreds,"  he  said. 

Mr.  Higgins  gave  a  sigh  of  relief.  "That's  a  good 
thing.  That's  a  very  good  thing.  You  see,  I'm 
nairvous,  doctor.  I  lost  my  fairst  over  it,  and  I 
don't  want  to  lose  this  one.  Very  young  she  is." 

"Is  this  her  first?" 


470         JHE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"Yes,  doctor." 

Another  bit  of  bad  luck ! 

Through  a  maze  of  gritty  streets  they  hurried, 
reaching,  at  last,  a  house  beside  a  corner  "public" 
which  a  cluster  of  women,  gossiping  in  their  aprons 
on  the  doorstep,  proclaimed  as  the  site  of  this  mo- 
mentous birth.  One  of  them  snatched  the  black 
bag  from  Mr.  Higgins.  "You  get  away,  'Iggins,  and 
'ave  a  pint  of  beer  quiet  like.  This  baint  no  place 
for  an  'usband.  This  way,  doctor.  Here  she  is, 
poor  lamb." 

She  pushed  her  way  up  the  stairs,  breathing 
heavily.  Her  bunchy  skirts  filled  the  staircase, 
which  was  no  wider  than  a  loft-ladder  and  very 
dark. 

"  'Ere  'e  is,"  she  cried  triumphantly,  as  she 
pushed  open  a  matchboard  door.  "  'Ere  'e  is.  'Ere's 
the  doctor.  Now  you  won't  be  long,  my  lover.  'E'll 
'elp  you.  You'll  'elp  'er,  won't  you,  doctor?" 

She  deposited  the  talismanic  bag  triumphantly 
on  the  foot  of  the  bed ;  then  she  winked  at  Edwin : 
"I'll  go  and  keep  'Iggins  out  of  the  way,"  she  said. 

"I'm  that  glad  youVe  come,  doctor,"  said  the 
nurse.  She  was  a  little  shrivelled  woman,  with  a 
nervous  smile  and  her  hair  packed  into  a  black  net 
with  a  wide  mesh  that  made  her  whole  head  sombre 
and  forbidding.  Her  lips  twitched  when  she 
smiled,  and  Edwin,  who  had  been  counting  on  the 
moral  support  of  her  experience,  saw  at  once  that 
she  was  even  more  anxious  than  himself.  He  was 
soon  to  know  that  the  women  who  acted  as  profes- 
sional midwives  in  the  North  Bromwich  slums  were 
usually  widows  left  without  means,  who  adopted 


EASY  ROW  471 

this  profession  with  no  other  qualification  than  a 
certain  wealth  of  subjective  experience,  on  which 
they  were  careful  to  insist.  The  claim :  "I've  had 
eight  of  them  myself,  so  /  ought  to  know,"  did 
not  atone  for  the  fact  that  they  didn't  actually  know 
anything  at  all.  Mrs.  Brown,  the  lady  to  whose 
mercies  the  trustful  Mr.  Higgins  had  committed  his 
second,  was  a  timid  specimen  of  the  class.  Beneath 
her  protestations  of  experience  her  soul  quaked 
with  terror,  and  a  hazy  conviction  that  if  anything 
went  wrong,  she,  the  unregistered,  would  probably 
be  committed  for  manslaughter,  reduced  her  to  a 
state  of  dazed  incompetence  in  which  she  heard 
without  hearing  Edwin's  none  too  confident  direc- 
tions. She  went  downstairs  tremulously  to  bring 
hot  water,  and  Edwin  was  left  alone  with  his  pa- 
tient. 

"It  won't  be  long,  doctor,  will  it?"  she  said. 

"Of  course  not  ...  of  course  not,"  said  Edwin. 
He  felt  very  much  of  a  fraud,  for  he  hadn't  the 
least  idea  how  long  it  would  be.  The  whole  picture 
was  moving:  the  patient,  a  girl  of  twenty-four  or 
five,  her  honey-coloured  hair  drawn  back  tightly 
from  a  face  that  was  blotched  already  with  tears, 
but  not  ill-looking:  the  humility  of  the  little  bed- 
room with  its  hired  furniture  and  certain  humble 
attempts  at  ornamentation :  pink  ribbon  bows  upon 
the  curtains,  a  ridiculous  china  ornament  on  the 
mantelpiece,  and  brass  knobs  at  the  foot  of  the  bed- 
stead, so  polished  that  they  had  already  become 
loose.  No  doubt  Mrs.  Higgins  the  second  had  been 
in  respectable  suburban  service,  and  these  worthy 
efforts  were  the  signs  of  an  attempt  to  introduce 


472         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

into  Kea  Barn  Lane  the  amenities  of  Alvaston.  She 
lay  quietly  on  the  bed,  gazing  at  nothing  while 
Edwin  unpacked  his  bag.  He  did  not  look  at  her, 
but  became  suddenly  conscious  that  her  body  had 
given  a  kind  of  jump  and  that  her  hands  were  des- 
perately clutching  a  towel  that  Mrs.  Brown  had 
knotted  to  the  rail  at  the  bottom  of  the  bed.  Then 
he  heard  the  joints  of  the  bedstead  creak.  "It's  all 
right.  Cheer  up.  ...  It  won't  be  long,"  he  said. 

Mrs.  Brown  emerged  panting  from  the  stairway 
with  hot  water.  "That's  right,  my  lover,  that's 
right.  .  .  .  That's  another  one  less.  Now,  let  the 
doctor  have  a  look  at  you."  . 

A  strange  business.  ...  It  was  a  moment  that 
might  have  been  difficult;  but  Edwin  soon  realised 
that  the  seriousness  of  the  occasion,  the  fact  that 
this  young  creature's  life  was  veritably  in  his  hands, 
made  modesty  seem  a  thing  of  no  account.  In  the 
eyes  of  this  woman  Edwin  was  not  a  young  man 
but  an  agency  of  relief  from  pain.  In  the  body 
that  pain  dominated  there  could  be  no  room  for 
blushes.  Edwin,  trying  to  summon  all  his  hardly 
learned  theory  to  his  aid  in  practice,  was  suddenly 
impressed  with  the  obligations  that  this  confidence 
imposed  on  him.  He  remembered  the  terms  of  the 
Hippocratic  oath.  Yea  ...  a  goodly  heritage! 

"Is  it  all  right,  doctor?"  said  the  anxious  voice 
of  Mrs.  Brown. 

"Yes,,  it's  all  right." 

"Thank  the  Lord  for  that!  You  hear  what  the 
doctor  says,  my  lover " 

"But  it  will  be  a  long  time  yet." 

"Oh,  don't  say  that,  doctor,  don't  say  that,"  Mrs. 


EASY  ROW  473 

Higgins  wailed.     "You  aren't  going  to  leave  me?" 

"It's  no  good  staying  here  now,"  he  said,  as  gently 
as  he  could.  "It's  really  all  right.  It's  only  a 
matter  of  time." 

"Can't  you  help  her  a  bit,  doctor?" 

Of  course  he  couldn't.  A  business  of  that  kind 
would  mean  calling  in  the  house-surgeon  from  the 
Prince's.  He  was  determined  not  to  be  driven  into 
a  panic,  though  this  would  have  been  easy  enough, 
when  he  was  convinced  that  the  case  was  taking  a 
normal  though  inevitably  lengthy  course. 

"I  expect  you'll  want  me  again  some  time  this 
evening,"  he  said. 

Mrs.  Brown  showed  him  downstairs.  "You're 
sure  it  is  all  right,  aren't  you,  doctor?"  she  said. 

"Perfectly  all  right.  You  know  what  a  first  case 
is." 

"I'd  ought  to,"  said  Mrs.  Brown  proudly.  "I've 
had  eight  myself." 

He  trudged  back  to  Easy  Row,  where  the  pro- 
fessionals' pianos,  tuned  in  quarter-tones,  were  al- 
ready combining  to  show  their  catholicity  in  musi- 
cal taste.  Boyce  wTas  drowsing  in  an  easy-chair  with 
the  Greek  Anthology  open  in  his  lap. 

"Well,  how's  your  Mrs.  Higgins?"  he  asked  lazily. 

"Oh,  she's  all  right.  A  primip.  Is  Mrs.  Hadley 
through  her  little  troubles?" 

"B.B.A.  Born  before  arrival.  A  soft  job.  Saves 
a  lot  of  trouble." 

"My  good  lady  will  haul  us  out  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  damn  her !"  said  Edwin.  A  conventional 
mode  of  expression,  for  he  didn't  in  the  least  feel 
like  damning  Mrs.  Higgins.  In  his  mind  he  still 


474         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

carried  the  picture  of  her  plain  hair  and  blotched 
face :  he  could  hear  the  sound  of  that  sudden  shud- 
der and  the  noise  of  the  bedstead  creaking. 

The  evening  passed  quietly.  They  tried  to  read, 
but  found  the  feeling  of  suspense  made  that  im- 
possible. No  message  came  from  Mrs.  Higgins,  and 
as  they  were  almost  certain  to  be  called  out  in  the 
night,  they  went  to  bed  early.  While  they  were  un- 
dressing, Boyce  humming  softly  the  Liebestod  from 
Tristan,  the  bell  in  their  bedroom  rang. 

"Mrs.  Higgins,"  said  Edwin.  "I'd  better  go  and 
see." 

He  groped  -his  way  downstairs.  In  the  front 
room  a  party  of  music-hall  artistes  were  making  a 
noisy  supper.  Before  he  could  reach  the  door  the 
bell  rang  again,  and  when  he  opened  it,  a  big  man 
whose  breath  smelt  of  liquor,  lurched  into  the  hall. 

"Are  you  the  doctor?" 

"Yes." 

"You're  to  come  at  once  to  thirty-four  Greville 
Street.  It's  the  missus.  The  nurse  says  it's  urgent." 

The  nurse  always  said  it  was  urgent.  Boyce 
came  downstairs  grumbling. 

"We'd  better  go  together." 

"What  about  my  friend,  Mrs.  Higgins?" 

"Oh,  damn  Mrs.  Higgins!"  said  Boyce. 

It  was  a  clear  and  frosty  night,  in  which  all 
points  of  light,  whether  of  starshine,  or  street- 
lamps,  or  of  blue  sparks  crackling  from  the  tram- 
way cables,  shone  brightly.  The  Greville  Street 
husband  lurched  along  beside  them,  just  sufficiently 
awake  to  show  them  the  way  through  a  maze  of 
rectangular  byways  to  a  street  that  lay  upon  the 


EASY  ROW  475 

outer  edge  of  the  district  that  the  hospital  covered. 
The  chill  clarity  of  the  air  dispelled  sleep.  It  was 
even  pleasant  to  be  walking  there,  for  at  this  time 
of  the  night  the  town  was  so  empty  that  they  might 
almost  have  been  walking  over  a  country  road. 

"Here  it  is,"  said  the  husband  thickly. 

Boyce  and  Edwin  entered  together.  The  front 
room  of  the  house  was  crowded  with  people  who 
should  have  been  in  bed.  They  sat  clustered  about 
a  table  on  which  stood  a  number  of  bottles  from 
one  of  which  the  messenger  had  evidently  extracted 
his  peculiar  perfume.  In  the  corner  chair,  next  to 
the  window,  an  old  woman  in  a  lace  cap  had  fallen 
asleep.  Opposite  her  a  very  dirty  old  man  toasted 
his  shins  in  front  of  the  fire.  A  strapping  girl  with 
dark,  untidy  hair,  and  aa  almost  aggressive  phys- 
ical beauty  was  holding  forth  shrilly  to  a  group  of 
three  women  who  had  wandered  in  to  drink  and 
gossip  from  a  neighbouring  court. 

"Here  they  are,"  said  the  husband  sullenly,  "two 
on  'em." 

"My  God!  .  .  .  Two  of  them?  Is  that  all?"  said 
the  dark  girl,  examining  and,  as  it  seemed,  approv- 
ing. 

Upstairs  they  found  a  midwife  of  another  but 
equally  characteristic  type:  a  fat  woman  whose 
attention  was  divided  between  the  patient  in  bed 
and  the  cheerful  company  in  the  front  room.  On 
the  surface  she  was  a  little  patronising,  an  attitude 
that  the  two  students'  inexperience  made  it  difficult 
for  them  to  resent.  "I  know  what  you  doctors 
want,"  she  said,  standing  with  her  sleeves  rolled 
up  over  her  red  forearms.  "Plenty  of  hot  water, 


476         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

that's  what  you  want.  I've  got  some  disinfectant 
too.  I've  often  been  with  the  'ospital  doctors.  Now 
we  shan't  be  long." 

She  bustled  downstairs,  looking  into  the  front 
room  for  a  drink  on  her  way  to  the  kitchen.  Boyce, 
confident  in  the  completion  of  his  first  case,  took 
the  lead  in  questioning  the  patient,  a  slightly  older 
version  of  the  dark  sanguine  girl  they  had  seen 
below.  Her  whole  attitude  towards  the  business, 
though  less  pathetic  than  that  of  the  unforgotten 
Mrs.  Higgins,  was  equally  moving.  It  implied  such 
a  cheerful  and  courageous  acceptance  of  life  and 
this  most  uncomfortable  of  its  experiences.  Her 
amazing  vitality  pervaded  the  room.  It  could  be 
seen  in  her  masterful  smile,  in  the  grip  of  her  red 
fingers  on  the  knotted  towel,  in  the  deep  suffusion 
of  her  face.  A  jolly  woman,  built  in  the  mould  of 
a  fighter,  who  would  neither  take  quarter  nor  give 
it.  When  Boyce  had  examined  her  she  smiled,  dis- 
closing a  fine  set  of  teeth,  and  solemnly  winked. 

"Well,  doctor,  what  about  it?" 

"Listen  to  'er,"  said  the  midwife,  chuckling. 
"That's  the  way  to  take  it!" 

"Well,  it's  all  right,  you  know,  but  it  won't  be 
just  yet  awhile." 

"My  God  ...  I  didn't  pay  the  'ospital  five  bob 
for  you  to  tell  me  that.  Look  'ere,  doctor,  my  elder 
sister  'ad  a  horrible  time  with  her  first.  'Ad  to 
'ave  it  took  off  'er.  Be  a  sport,  doctor,  and  give  us 
a  smell  of  chloroform.  Come  on,  now !  There's  two 
on  you.  .  .  .  'Ard-'earted  devils  all  you  doctors  are. 
Bain't  they,  Mrs.  Perkins?"  She  smiled  at  the  mid- 
wife, and  then,  suddenly,  her  face  changed  and 


EASY  ROW  477 

she  clutched  at  the  knotted  towel.  "Oh,  my!"  she 
said,  and  Edwin  saw  the  veins  in  her  neck  swell, 
and  heard  her  clench  her  teeth. 

"That's  the  way,  dearie.  That's  the  way,"  said 
Mrs.  Perkins,  gritting  her  own  teeth  in  sympathy 
and  smoothing  back  the  hair  from  the  patient's 
brow. 

Edwin  and  Boyce  were  debating  as  to  whether  it 
were  worth  while  staying  when  a  messenger  from 
the  hospital  arrived  from  below  to  say  that  Mrs. 
Hadley,  Boyce's  patient  of  the  afternoon,  was  "took 
worse,"  and  so  Edwin  was  left  alone  once  more  in 
the  squalor  of  the  patient's  room.  He  sat  waiting 
in  a  chair  that  was  supposed  to  be  easy,  listening 
to  the  conversation  of  the  woman  and  her  nurse. 
Most  of  it  was  family  history  of  a  scandalous  kind, 
and  the  manner  of  its  expression  was  extremely 
frank.  In  the  course  of  his  hospital  work  he  had 
never  before  realised  the  extraordinary  contradic- 
tions of  the  code  by  which  the  talk  of  the  working- 
class  is  governed.  In  its  mixture  of  delicacies  and 
blatancies  it  amazed  him.  Both  the  women  were 
flu«nt  gossips,  and  the  conversation  never  ceased, 
except  in  those  moments  of  acute  and  sudden  ten- 
sion when  the  patient's  hands  clutched  at  her  towel 
and  the  midwife  mopped  her  brow.  Then,  when 
the  upstairs  room  was  silent,  a  murmur  of  laughter 
and  loud  voices  would  come  up  the  stairs  from 
below.  In  this  family,  at  any  rate,  the  occasion  of 
a  birth  did  not  lack  celebration.  Even  the  patient 
was  curious  about  what  was  happening  downstairs. 
"What's  our  Susan  doing?"  she  said  from  time  to 
time. 


478         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

An  interminable  business.  As  the  night  wore  on 
it  grew  very  chilly,  and  Edwin  shivered  in  his  chair. 
The  case  hung  fire  unaccountably,  and  in  this,  the 
first  of  many  such  cold  vigils,  he  fell  into  a  strange 
mood,  often  to  be  repeated,  in  which  the  sublime 
influences  of  night  and  solitude  combined  to  purge 
his  reflections  of  pettiness  and  showed  him  what 
an  unimaginable  mystery  his  own  life  was.  The 
patient  fell  into  an  uneasy  doze.  The  midwife 
nodded  in  her  chair,  snatching  up  her  head  with  a 
conscious  jerk  whenever  it  lolled  over  her  fat  bosom. 
The  smelly  oil-lamp  on  the  mantelpiece  gave  an 
occasional  sputter  when  a  drop  of  water  was  sucked 
up  into  the  wick.  In  the  room  below  the  excited 
talk  bad  petered  out  and  only  a  sound  of  soft  snor- 
ing was  heard,  like  the  breathing  of  cows  in  a  byre. 

Edwin  thought  of  many  things.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  his  mind  burned  clear  as  frosty  starlight 
lighting  forgotten  memories  of  his  childhood.  He 
thought  of  his  own  mother.  He  wondered  if  she 
had  lain  like  the  woman  on  the  bed  on  the  night 
when  he  was  born.  He  wondered  if  it  had  been  in 
the  least  like  this,  and  whether  another  doctor, 
whose  name  he  did  not  even  know,  had  sat  by  the 
fireplace  in  the  little  room  at  Halesby  waiting  and 
peeing  his  own  life  stretched  out  before  him  in  this 
light  of  perilous  clarity.  He  thought  of  St.  Luke's 
— of  a  thousand  small  things  that  had  lain  sub- 
merged for  years  and  now  appeared  unbidden.  The 
strangeness  of  his  own  experience,  the  elements  of 
linked  circumstance  that  had  combined  to  twist  his 
life  into  its  present  state  and  make  him  what  he 
was.  He  thought  of  his  father,  with  an  unusual 


EASY  ROW  479 

degree  of  charity,  realising  that  this  man  too  was 
no  more  than  a  slave  of  the  same  blind  influences 
driven  hither  and  thither  in  spite  of  his  innate 
goodwill.  Edwin  was  ashamed  to  think  that  he  had 
been  angry  with  him.  In  his  present  mood  it  seemed 
to  him  an  unreasonable  thing  that  one  should  be 
angry  with  any  human  creature.  Pity  .  .  .  yes,  and 
love — but  never  anger.  So,  like  a  devotee  in  a 
Tibetan  lamassary,  he  saw  his  fellow  creatures,  his 
father,  himself,  the  midwife,  and  the  woman  on  the 
bed,  bound  helpless  to  the  revolving  wheel  which 
is  the  earth.  And  the  earth  seemed  very  small  be- 
neath the  stars.  .  .  . 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  handsome  girl 
from  downstairs,  who  was  the  patient's  sister,  came 
softly  into  the  room  and  asked  the  midwife  if  she 
would  like  a  cup  of  tea.  The  patient  blinked  at 
her  with  red  eyes. 

"How  is  it  going,  Sally?"  said  the  sister. 

"Oh,  it's  all  right.  I  suppose  it's  got  to  be  worse 
before  it's  better,"  she  said,  with  a  laugh.  "Ask 
the  doctor  if  he'll  have  some  tea  too." 

Edwin  accepted  gratefully.  It  was  harsh  stuff 
that  had  been  standing  on  the  hob  downstairs  for 
some  hours  already.  Mrs.  Perkins  was  easily  per- 
suaded into  doctoring  hers  with  a  tablespoonful  of 
brandy  from  the  bottle  that  is  a  regular  constitu- 
ent of  the  working  class  layette.  The  sister  sat  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed  and  stared  lazily  at  Edwin. 

"You  look  tired,  doctor,"  she  said. 

Edwin  admitted  that  he  had  had  a  biggish  day. 

"You  ought  to  get  a  bit  of  sleep,"  said  the  dark 


480         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

girl.  "Sorry  there  bain't  no  spare  beds  in  the  house ; 
but  you  can  turn  in  with  me  if  you  like." 

She  looked  so  daringly  provocative  that  Edwin 
had  a  horrible  suspicion  that  she  meant  it;  but  it 
was  evidently  the  sort  of  joke  that  Greville  Street 
understood,  for  the  patient  on  the  bed  cried,  "Ethel, 
you  are  a  cough-drop,  you'll  make  the  doctor  blush," 
and  Mrs.  Perkins  rocked  with  laughter  until  she 
spilt  her  tea. 

"Well,  why  should  you  have  all  the  fun,  Sally? 
It  isn't  every  day  we  get  a  nice  young  man  in  the 
house." 

"Fun  .  .  .,"  said  the  patient  wryly.  "You'll  know 
all  about  this  sort  of  fun  some  day." 

"Not  just  yet,  thank  you,"  said  Ethel.  "I  can 
look  after  myself  better  than  that." 

She  went  downstairs  again.  Edwin  was  beginning 
to  feel  a  little  unhappy  about  the  case.  To  his  in- 
experience the  long  delay  seemed  abnormal,  and  his 
imagination  presented  to  him  a  series  of  textbook 
disasters.  While  he  stood  doubting  whether  he 
should  give  himself  away  by  sending  to  the  hos- 
pital for  the  house-surgeon,  he  was  startled  by  a 
sudden  cry.  Now,  at  any  rate,  there  was  no  doubt 
about  it.  At  this  rate,  he  thought,  it  could  not  be 
long.  But  it  took  three  hours:  three  hours  of  des- 
perate struggle  in  which  he  could  give  no  help, 
though  the  thing  was  so  fierce  that  he  found  his 
sympathies  snatched  up  into  it :  so  that  he  held  his 
breath  and  clenched  his  hands  and  felt  his  own 
temples  bursting  with  effort.  There  had  been  no 
experience  like  it.  As  he  sat  at  the  bedside  with 
the  patient's  fingers  clasped  about  his  wrist,  he 


EASY  ROW  481 

had  the  feeling  that  this  woman,  who  had  joked 
with  him  half  an  hour  before  with  the  dry,  coura- 
geous cynicism  that  colours  the  philosophy  of  her 
class,  was  not  an  individual  human  soul  any  longer ; 
not  a  woman  at  all,  but  a  mass  of  straining,  tor- 
tured muscle  animated  by  the  first  force  of  life. 
So  it  had  been  since  the  first  woman  cried  out  in 
the  night  under  the  tangles  of  Caucasus:  so  it 
would  always  be :  the  most  sublime  and  terrible  of 
all  physical  experiences,  a  state  of  sheer  physical 
possession,  more  powerful  than  any  spiritual 
ecstasy  imaginable. 

At  five  o'clock  the  baby  was  born — a  boy,  and 
Mrs.  Perkins,  standing  by  with  a  skein  of  twisted 
thread  in  her  hand,  danced  with  nervousness.  Ed- 
win's hands  also  trembled ;  but  his  heart  was  light- 
ened with  a  sudden  relief,  as  though  the  labour 
had  been  his  and  his  also  the  accomplishment.  A 
palpably  ridiculous  state  of  mind  .  .  .  but  it  took 
him  like  that. 

The  dark  girl  put  her  head  in  at  the  door.  She 
was  very  pale  now.  Had  the  whole  household 
shared  in  these  physical  throes? 

"Is  it  all  right?"  she  said. 

"Yes  .  .  .  it's  a  boy.    A  beautiful  boy." 

"Hallo,  Eth,"  said  a  quiet  voice  from  the  bed. 
"Go  and  tell  Jim." 

It  was  the  first  word  the  patient  had  spoken. 

A  moment  later  she  opened  her  eyes  and  stared 
in  a  dazed  way  at  Edwin.  She  smiled.  She  was  a 
woman  again — an  extraof  dinarily  chastened  woman 
— and  somehow  strangely  beautiful.  "Thank  you, 


482         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

doctor/'  she  said.  "You  'elped  me  ever  so.  Did 
I  be'ave  very  bad,  Mrs.  Perkins?" 

"Bad?  You  be'aved  fine,"  said  Mrs.  Perkins, 
wrapping  the  baby  in  a  blanket  and  putting  it  in 
the  fender. 

The  patient  gave  a  deep  sigh  and  seemed  to 
relapse  into  her  thoughts.  From  time  to  time  she 
would  say  a  couple  of  words  in  a  weak-contented 
voice. 

"  'As  Eth  told  Jim?"  she  asked  several  times,  and 
then :  "What'll  mother  think?" 

"You  be  quiet,  my  lover,"  said  the  midwife. 
"Don't  you  disturb  yourself  with  talking." 

At  last  she  said  suddenly :  "I'm  better  now,"  and 
asked  if  she  might  see  the  baby.  Mrs.  Perkins  un- 
wrapped the  blanket  from  a  red  and  frowning  fore- 
head and  showed  it  to  her.  She  touched  its  cheek 
with  her  finger  and  smiled  miraculously.  The  ac- 
tion seemed  to  bring  her  submerged  personality  to 
the  surface  again. 

"Ugly  little  b ,"  she  said,  with  a  happy  laugh. 

"Looks  as  if  'e'd  been  on  the  booze." 

"I  shan't  forget  the  way  you  'elped  me,  doctor," 
she  said  again,  when  Edwin  left  the  house.  Al- 
though it  was  still  dark,  the  workmen's  trams  had 
begun  to  run,  and  lights  appeared  in  the  lower  win- 
dows of  public  houses  where  hot  soup  was  on  sale. 
When  he  entered  the  bedroom  of  their  lodging,  Ed- 
win found,  and  envied,  Boyce  sleeping  stertorously 
with  the  blankets  pulled  over  his  head  and  an  over- 
coat on  his  feet.  Three  hours  later,  when  the  land- 
lady came  to  call  them,  he  woke,  and  explained  to 
Edwin  the  excitements  of  his  own  night:  how,  in 


EASY  ROW  483 

the  middle  of  it,  Edwin's  own  Mrs.  Higgins  had 
called  him  out  ("decent  little  woman,"  said  Boyce), 
and  how,  from  sixteen  Granby  Street,  he  had  been 
called  to  a  case  at  the  other  end  of  the  district  in 
a  common  lodging-house  kept  by  a  Pole. 

"No  hot  water  ...  no  soap  .  .  .  nothing  but  a 
bucket  that  they'd  used  for  scrubbing  the  floors. 
Not  even  a  bed!  Just  a  straw  mattress  with  a 
couple  of  grey  blankets  on  it.  Two  other  children 
and  a  man  in  the  room.  And  crawling!  I've 
stripped  and  had  a  rub  down  with  a  towel,  but  I 
feel  as  if  they  were  all  over  me  now.  You  couldn't 
see  them  on  the  grey  blankets,  you  know," 

"Sounds  dismal.  Had  they  a  capable  woman? 
My  Mrs.  Perkins  wasn't  up  to  much." 

"Midwife?  My  dear  chap,  they  didn't  run  to 
luxuries  like  that.  It  is  a  bit  thick,  isn't  it?  when 
a  modern  surgeon-accoucheur  is  reduced  to  wash- 
ing the  baby  with  his  own  soap.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  was  an  extraordinarily  interesting  perform- 
ance. The  thing  felt  as  if  it  would  break.  But  seri- 
ously, you  know,  this  sort  of  thing  teaches  you  a  bit 
about  twentieth  century  housing." 

"Yes,  it's  pretty  bad,"  said  Edwin.  "There's  one 
thing  about  it:  working  all  night  like  this  gives 
you  a  terrific  appetite." 

m 

For  a  few  days  the  extreme  novelty  of  their  ad- 
venture sustained  them,  but  after  five  nights  of 
broken  or  obliterated  sleep,  the  presence  of  the 
night-bell  at  their  bedside  stood  for  a  symbol  of 
perpetual  unrest.  Their  days  were  spent  in  visit- 


484         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ing  patients  whom  they  had  attended.  All  examina- 
tion work  was  made  impossible  by  the  fatigue  that 
follows  want  of  sleep,  and  the  fact  that  they  were 
committed  to  a  kind  of  enforced  idleness  made  their 
sojourn  in  Easy  Kow  almost  as  much  a  holiday  as 
the  great  summer  days  at  Overton. 

Both  of  them  found  that  they  could  not  even  read 
for  pleasure;  and  so  the  undisturbed  hours  of  the 
day  were  passed  in  talk  and  in  music.  Mrs. 
Meadows's  piano  had  suffered  under  the  fingers  and 
thumbs  of  countless  guests;  but  Edwin  and  Boyce 
shared  the  cost  of  a  tuner  and  worked  together 
through  the  Wagner  scores  and  the  subtler  treas- 
ures that  lay  hidden  in  the  songs  of  Hugo  Wolf. 
They  had  few  visitors,  for  this  community  of  taste 
had  already  begun  to  isolate  them  from  their  stu- 
dent friends;  but  Boyce's  father,  the  poet,  often 
came  to  have  tea  with  them  and  to  share  their 
music,  a  man  as  versatile  and  sanguine  as  Mere- 
dith's Roy  Richmond,  and  yet  so  versed  in  every 
variety  of  knowledge  and  so  reverent  of  beauty  that 
Edwin  felt  there  was  no  such  company  in  the  world : 
one  who  took  all  beauty  and  knowledge  for  his 
province. 

One  afternoon  a  message  came  to  the  house  in 
Easy  Row  from  the  hospital,  and  as  Mrs.  Meadows 
was  engaged  in  some  obscure  adjustment  of  her 
toilet,  Edwin  went  to  the  door  to  receive  it.  He 
took  the  message,  and  was  returning  when  another 
figure  appeared  on  the  path.  It  was  that  of  a  young 
girl  of  his  own  age,  or,  perhaps,  a  little  older,  and 
she  hurried  forward  when  she  saw  that  he  was  clos- 
ing the  door.  He  waited. 


EASY  ROW  485 

"You  weren't  going  to  shut  me  out,  were  you?" 
she  said.  She  smiled,  and  Edwin  saw  that  her  eyes 
were  of  a  warm  hazel  such  as  sunshine  reveals  in 
peaty  river  water.  Before  them  Edwin  found  him- 
self blushing. 

"No,  indeed,"  he  said.  "Do  you  want  Mrs. 
Meadows?  I'll  go  and  tell  her." 

"Mrs.  Meadows?    This  is  thirty-seven,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes  .  .  .  thirty-seven." 

"I've  come  to  see  my  friend,  Miss  Latham.  She's 
lodging  here." 

"I'm  so  sorry.  Of  course.  I  expect  she's  in  the 
front  room." 

"Thank  you."  She  spoke  very  demurely.  He 
stood  aside  to  let  her  pass  and  with  her  a  faint 
fragrance  of  white  rose. 

By  this  time  Miss  Latham  herself  had  emerged, 
a  blowsy  woman  who  was  taking  a  small  part  in 
the  Christmas  pantomime  at  the  theatre,  and  had 
introduced  herself  to  the  friends  through  Mrs. 
Meadows  a  few  days  before. 

"Why,  Rosie,  my  dear,  isn't  this  just  sweet  of 
you?  Fancy  finding  you  on  the  step  flirting  with 
Doctor  .  .  .  Dr.  Ingleby!  That's  right,  isn't 
it?" 

"Oh,  what  a  shame,  Hetty!  We  weren't,  were 
we?"  Ingenuously  she  turned  her  eyes  on  Edwin 
again.  Were  they  hazel?  Perhaps  they  were  al- 
most amber.  A  matter  of  light  .  .  . 

"No  .  .  .  I'm  afraid  we  weren't.  She  didn't 
give  us  time." 

"Two  doctors  in  the  house !  Think  of  that !"  said 
Miss  Hetty  Latham,  whose  conversation  habitually 


486         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

ran  from  one  note  of  exclamation  to  another. 
"Imagine  how  safe  we  feel,  Kosie !" 

And  Rosie  surveyed  Edwin  seriously. 

"Aren't  you  awfully  young?" 

"I  suppose  I  am  rather.  I'm  not  qualified  yet. 
But  I  expect  to  be  next  week." 

"Then  you  must  be  awfully  clever  too " 

"What  on  earth  are  we  all  doing  talking  here  in 
the  passage?  Come  along  in  and  have  a  cup  of 
tea,"  said  Miss  Latham  boisterously. 

"As  you  two  are  such  great  friends  already,  I 
suppose  it's  waste  of  time  introducing  you." 

"Really "  Edwin  protested. 

"Very  will,  then.  Dr.  Ingleby:  Miss  Rosie 
Beaucaire.  I  never  get  the  order  right.  You  can 
take  it  or  leave  it.  May  he  come  to  tea  with  us, 
Rosie?" 

"Of  course  he  may." 

"Come  along  then,  both  of  you  .  .  ." 


CHAPTER  X 

WHITE  ROSES 


IT  was  the  first  of  many  amazing  adventures,  to 
which  Matthew  Boyce  supplied  a  calculated  and 
cynical  commentary,  watching  Edwin  as  though 
he  were  the  subject  of  a  physiological  experiment — • 
as  indeed  he  was.  But  lack  of  sympathy  in  one 
quarter  was  scarcely  likely  to  worry  Edwin  when 
he  had  found  it  so  overwhelmingly  in  another.  In 
a  few  days  Miss  Latham,  the  most  tactful  of 
duennas,  had  withdrawn  from  the  scene.  On  the 
first  night  of  their  acquaintance  Edwin  had  taken 
the  hazel-eyed  Miss  Beaucaire  back  to  her  lodg- 
ings in  Prince  Albert's  Place  at  the  back  of  the 
theatre,  where  the  pantomime  was  in  rehearsal.  All 
the  way  through  the  squalid,  lamp-lit  streets  they 
had  talked  of  things  that  were  entrancing,  simply 
because  they  had  to  do  with  her.  Edwin  thought 
that  no  companionship  in  all  his  life  had  been  so 
natural  and  so  easy;  and  this  was  not  surprising, 
for  the  young  woman,  in  addition  to  physical 
charms  that  were  armoury  enough  in  themselves, 
had  developed  the  faculty  commonly  acquired  by 
ladies  of  her  profession,  of  devoting  herself  entirely 
to  the  companion  of  the  moment  and  giving  the 

487 


488         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

impression  that  she  had  never  known,  and  would 
never  want  to  know,  any  other  person  in  the  world. 
Bosie  was  only  twenty-four,  but  had  given  at  least 
the  last  third  of  her  life  to  studying  male  of  the 
species  of  which  Edwin  was  a  peculiarly  ingenuous 
example.  At  the  door  of  her  lodgings  she  had  con- 
jured an  atmosphere  of  mysterious  intimacy.  Speak- 
ing in  a  voice  that  was  low  and  of  a  thrilling  ten- 
derness, she  had  said : — 

"I  mustn't  ask  you  to  come  in  to-day.  It's  a 
dreadful  shame;  but  mother  has  one  of  her  head- 
aches, and  the  noise  might  disturb  her.  You  under- 
stand, don't  you?" 

Edwin,  with  a  vision  of  an  elderly  and  delicate 
version  of  Rosie  herself  lying  on  a  sofa  with  a 
handkerchief  dipped  in  eau-de-cologne  over  her  eyes, 
assented.  He  thought  it  a  very  beautiful  considera- 
tion on  Kosie's  part.  A  small  black  and  tan  terrier 
came  dancing  into  the  hall  with  a  friendly  yelp. 

"Be  quiet,  Imp  ...  oh,  do  be  quiet !  Isn't  he  a 
duck?"  she  said.  "Now,  I  must  really  go."  She 
held  out  her  hand.  A  moment  before  she  had  taken 
off  her  glove,  and  Edwin,  who  had  scarcely  ever 
touched  the  hand  of  a  woman  before,  thought  that 
her  fingers  were  the  softest  and  most  delicate  things 
on  earth. 

"You'll  come  and  have  tea  with  us,  won't  you? 
I  should  like  you  to  meet  mother." 

"Of  course,  I'd  like  to.    When?" 

"Oh  .  .  .  quite  soon.  Any  day  this  week. 
Promise  me  you  won't  forget  .  .  ."  As  if  he  could 
ever  forget!  Her  exquisite  humility  quite  bowled 
him  over.  When  she  had  closed  the  door  behind 


WHITE  ROSES  489 

her  he  walked  away  dazed  with  an  unfamiliar 
emotion  that  made  the  mean  street,  with  its  uni- 
form row  of  mid- Victorian  houses  on  one  side,  and 
on  the  other  the  blank  wall  of  the  theatre  and  huge, 
sooty  warehouses,  seem  a  holy  place.  The  Halesby 
Eoad,  with  its  streaming  traffic,  shared  the  same 
transfiguration.  The  speed  and  strength  of  the 
horses  enthralled  him ;  the  faces  of  men  and  women 
walking  homeward  from  their  work  in  the  city 
seemed  triumphantly  happy;  the  smooth  wood- 
pavement,  polished  by  the  rolling  of  innumerable 
wheels,  shone  like  a  street  in  heaven.  It  seemed  to 
Edwin  as  if  the  whole  world  had  somehow  been 
uplifted  by  a  secret  knowledge  of  his  own  experi- 
ence. A  night  of  wonder.  .  .  . 

"Well,  what  is  the  young  woman's  name?"  asked 
Boyce,  when  he  returned  to  Easy  Row. 

"Beaucaire.  She's  principal  girl  Jin  the 
pantomime  at  the  Queen's." 

"H'm.  .  .  .  Attractive  little  piece.  But  she 
can't  be  up  to  much  if  she's  a  pal  of  the  Latham 
woman's.  I've  seen  her  there  several  times." 

"Oh,  that  means  nothing,"  Edwin  explained.  "I 
don't  think  she's  at  all  keen  on  her.  They  acted  to- 
gether somewhere  years  ago.  You  can't  drop  peo- 
ple when  they've  been  kind  to  you.  I  don't  think 
she's  at  all  keen  on  her.  She's  quite  all  right.  Lives 
with  her  mother  in  Prince  Albert's  Place." 

"Pretty  rotten  sort  of  street.  Got  a  bad  name, 
you  know.  I  believe,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it's  con- 
sidered rather  the  thing  to  lug  an  official  mother 
about  with  you." 


THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"You  don't  mean "  Edwin  began,  going  very 

white. 

"Of  course  I  don't.  I  don't  know  anything  about 
her.  Only,  for  God's  sake,  take  care  of  yourself. 
A  young  woman  of  that  kind  generally  has  a  fair 
share  of  experience,  and  you  .  .  .  well,  you  haven't 
exactly.  Besides,  it's  just  as  well  to  remember  that 
the  final's  coming  off  in  ten  days." 

The  less  said  about  the  final  the  better. 

"She  isn't  a  chorus  girl,  you  know.  If  you'd  met 
her  I  think  you'd  admit  that  she's  a  lady.  She  told 
me  that  her  mother " 

Boyce  chuckled. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,"  said  Edwin,  clinching  the 
argument,  "her  father  was  a  country  parson  in 
low  circumstances." 

"I  understand  they  usually  are,"  said  Boyce  with 
a  yawn. 

Their  night  was  complicated  by  two  new  cases. 
Next  morning  they  appeared  at  breakfast  with 
slightly  ruffled  tempers.  They  sat  at  opposite  ends 
of  the  table,  Edwin  reading,  without  understand- 
ing, one  of  Oldham's  caustic  critiques  on  a  sym- 
phony concert  the  night  before,  his  friend  glued  to 
his  beloved  anthology. 

"What  did  you  say  her  name  was?"  said  Boyce, 
apropos  of  nothing.  "Rosie,  wasn't  it?" 

Edwin  grunted. 

"Have  you  ever  sampled  the  Sortes  Virgilianae? 
I  sometimes  try  that  trick  with  the  anthology. 
There  are  plenty  of  generalisations,  so  it  often 
comes  off  rather  well.  How's  this  for  last  night?" 

«H'm " 


WHITE  ROSES  t       491 


"Are  you  listening?" 
"Yes,  fire  away." 
Boyce  quoted  :  — 


*H  TO.  poda,  podoevaav  ex«  X&p'W)  &XM  rl 
)  TO.  poda,  r]l  <rvvan<f>OT€pa.', 


"Rather  neat,  isn't  it?  While  I  was  hanging 
about  that  case  in  Craven  Street,  I  made  a  transla- 
tion for  you.  Tell  me  what  you  think  of  it. 

*You  of  the  roses,  rosy-fair, 
Sweet  maiden,  tell  me  whether 
You  or  the  roses  are  your  ware, 
Or  both  of  them  together.'  " 

"Damned  rotten,  anyway,"  said  Edwin.  "Maiden's 
the  wrong  word  .  .  ." 

It  comforted  him,  none  the  less,  to  find  that 
Rosie  did  not  revisit  Miss  Latham,  though  this 
lady  pointedly  rallied  him  on  the  doorstep,  sug- 
gesting that  his  intimacy  with  Miss  Beaucaire  had 
reached  a  stage  to  which  he  had  not  yet  attained 
but  aspired  devoutly.  The  work  at  Easy  Row,  that 
had  slackened  for  a  few  days,  came  on  with  a  rush  ; 
and  though  the  image  of  this  delicate  creature  now 
filled  his  nightly  vigils,  being  even  more  precious 
for  the  squalid  surroundings  in  which  it  came  to 
him,  he  found  it  impossible  to  visit  the  lodgings  in 
Prince  Albert's  Place,  to  which  his  thoughts  with 
tantalising  regularity  returned. 

The  flood  of  work  held  until  their  fortnight  was 
out,  leaving  them  both  washed-out  and  irritable. 
To  speak  frankly,  the  last  few  days  of  their  com- 
radeship had  not  been  a  success.  Although  Edwin 


492         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

made  it  clear  that  he  didn't  wish  to  discuss  the 
affair  of  Kosie  with  Boyce,  the  incident  of  the  Greek 
epigram  rankled.  He  found  it  impossible  to  take 
the  matter  lightly,  feeling  that  it  was  necessary  to 
convince  himself  at  all  costs  that  he  wasn't  making 
a  fool  of  himself,  and  finding  it  difficult  to  do  so. 

On  the  Monday  next  before  the  final  examination 
he  found  himself  a  free  man.  It  was  a  questionable 
liberty,  for  its  enjoyment  really  depended  on  the 
result  of  this  ordeal.  He  had  definitely  severed 
his  connection  with  Dr.  Harris,  intending  to  devote 
all  his  spare  time  at  Easy  How  and  the  week  after 
to  preparations  for  the  exam.  A  big  gamble.  .  .  . 
Ten  pounds  and  a  few  shillings  was  all  he  possessed 
in  the  world,  except  a  problematical  degree  in 
medicine  which,  in  another  seven  days,  might  make 
him  certain  of  four  guineas  a  week  as  long  as  he 
chose  to  work.  The  margin  seemed  so  small  and  the 
chance  so  desperate  that  he  burned  the  last  of  his 
boats,  selling  his  microscope  to  a  pawnbroker  for 
twelve  pounds.  Twenty-three  pounds.  .  .  .  One 
could  do  a  lot  with  twenty-three  pounds  .  .  .  sup- 
posing nothing  went  wrong. 

He  found  a  cheap  bed-sitting-room  in  a  quiet 
street  at  the  back  of  the  University  buildings.  Here, 
and  in  the  museums,  he  would  be  able  to  put  in  a 
week  of  intensive  cramming.  He  found  that  he 
couldn't  do  it.  He  had  reckoned  without  the  un- 
reasonable quantity  of  Kosie.  The  first  night  on 
which  he  settled  down  to  read  in  his  new  lodging 
the  thought  of  her  would  not  let  him  rest.  It  was 
ridiculous.  What  he  wanted  was  a  hard  walk.  He 
would  go  up  to  Alvaston  and  rout  Boyce  out  of  his 


WHITE  ROSES  493 

study  for  a  tramp  in  the  moonlight  towards  South- 
field  Beeches.  He  would  apologise  to  Boyce  for  his 
bearishness  during  the  last  few  days.  Hadn't  they 
assured  each  other  on  one  of  their  ambrosial  eve- 
nings at  Overton  more  than  a  year  ago,  that  the 
friendship  of  two  men  was  a  more  precious  and 
lasting  experience  than  anything  that  the  love  of  a 
woman  could  give?  The  whole  thing  was  just  the 
result  of  physical  staleness:  a  symptom  of  the 
monotonous  fatigue  of  the  last  year.  He  was  going 
to  get  rid  of  it  at  all  costs.  He  turned  out  the  gas 
and  went  downstairs. 

It  was  a  discouraging  night.  A  soft  winter  drizzle 
had  set  in  from  the  We&t,  and  in  the  jaded  Halesby 
Road  nebulous  street  lamps  were  reflected  in  a  layer 
of  black  slime  that  covered  the  wood-pavement.  The 
shop  windows  were  misted  with  rain,  and  the  few 
people  who  had  ventured  out  into  the  street  trod 
carefully  as  though  they  were  afraid  of  slipping. 
A  brutal  night  if  ever  there  was  one.  Plodding  up 
the  street  with  the  rain  in  his  face  he  found  that 
he  was  passing  the  end  of  Prince  Albert's  Place. 
He  passed  it  by  twenty  paces,  and  then,  almost 
against  his  will,  turned  round  again.  It  was  no 
good.  There  she  was,  for  certain,  within  forty 
yards  of  him.  If  he  were  to  walk  along  the  road 
on  the  opposite  side  under  the  blank  walls  of  the 
warehouses,  he  would  be  able  to  see  the  very  room 
that  held  her  exquisiteness.  He  did  so.  There  was 
a  light  in  the  front  room  of  the  lower  story,  but  the 
blinds  were  down,  and  he  could  not  see  any  one 
inside.  He  crossed  the  road  boldly  and  stood  for 
a  moment  on  the  doorstep.  It  gave  him  a  peculiar 


494         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

stab  of  happiness  to  feel  so  near  her.  He  railed 
against  the  combination  of  shyness  and  convention 
that  held  him ;  for  if  he  were  to  do  the  thing  that 
was  reasonable  and  downright,  he  would  have 
walked  straight  into  the  house  and  told  her  the 
thousand  things  that  choked  his  heart — he  would 
have  kissed  her  soft  hands  and  gazed  into  her  shy, 
adorable  eyes.  Yes,  he  would  have  kissed  her  eyes 
too.  No  doubt  it  would  rather  have  taken  the 
mother's  breath  away.  Probably  Rosie  had  never 
given  him  another  thought  since  he  left  her  on  the 
doorstep.  That  was  the  funny  part  of  it.  He 
laughed  at  himself,  and  the  sound  of  his  laugh  must 
somehow  have  penetrated  the  hall,  for  the  black  and 
tan  terrier  barked  shrilly.  "Really,  I'm  off  my 
head,  you  know,"  he  said  to  himself,  and  wandered 
off  again  into  the  wet  streets,  walking,  until  the 
small  hours,  those  unimaginable  slums  in  which  his 
labours  of  the  last  fortnight  had  lain.  "God  .  .  . 
it's  ridiculous!"  he  thought,  "but  a  man  can't  help 
falling  in  love."  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  phantom 
of  Dorothy  Powys  regarded  him  seriously. 

n 

Next  afternoon  he  presented  himself  at  Prince 
Albert's  Place.  A  landlady  who  might  well  have 
been  Mrs.  Meadows's  sister  took  in  his  card,  and 
after  a  little  buzz  of  conversation  that  might  have 
been  explained  in  a  dozen  sinister  ways,  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  little  room,  whose  lighted  windows  he 
had  surveyed  the  night  before.  Rosie  came  forward 
to  meet  him.  Once  again,  trembling,  he  took  her 


WHITE  ROSES  495 

hand.    He  even  fancied — divine  flattery ! — that  she 
blushed. 

"This  is  my  friend  Dr.  Ingleby,  mother,"  she 
said. 

"Very  pleased  to  meet  you,  I'm  sure,"  said  Mrs. 
Beaucaire.  "Won't  you  come  and  sit  over  here?" 

In  the  shadow  of  Mrs.  Beaucaire  Edwin  took  his 
Beat.  She  was  a  large  woman  with  a  husky  voice 
and  a  big,  dissipated  face  that  had  once  been  hand- 
some. If  she  had  any  place  in  the  scheme  of  things 
it  was  surely  as  a  foil  to  the  fragile  grace  of  her 
daughter.  Rosie,  with  an  occasional  sideways 
glance,  was  busy  talking  to  a  little  man  with  a  blue 
shaven  chin  and  an  immense  mobile  mouth,  who 
looked  like  a  bookie. 

"I  suppose  you  know  Mr.  Flood?"  said  Mrs. 
Beaucaire. 

Edwin  confessed  that  he  did  not 

"The  Mr.  Flood,  you  know.  Bertie,  this  is  Mr. 
Ingleby.  ...  I  beg  your  pardon,  Dr.  Ingleby,"  and 
the  great  comedian  shook  hands  with  Edwin  and 
hoped  he  was  well. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  lodgings  was  very  easy 
and  familiar.  Bertie  Flood,  the  Mirth-maker  of 
Three  Continents,  as  the  newspapers  described  him, 
devoted  himself  in  an  easy  paternal  manner  to 
Rosie.  It  became  apparent  to  Edwin,  over- 
shadowed by  the  bulk  and  impressiveness  of  Mrs. 
Beaucaire,  that  whenever  Mr.  Flood  could  make 
an  opportunity  of  handling  Rosie,  he  did  so,  and 
also  that  Rosie  did  not  in  any  way  resent  the 
process.  It  even  seemed  to  him  that  she  invited 
Mr.  Flood's  attentions. 


496         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

"We're  very  unconventional  people,  you  know, 
Dr.  Ingleby — quite  Bohemian,"  said  Mrs.  Beaucaire 
in  a  thick  voice. 

Edwin  agreed  that  the  relation  was  delightful. 
It  was  only  by  an  effort  of  concentration  that  he 
could  hear  what  the  mother  was  saying.  All  the 
time  his  eyes  were  on  Eosie,  so  divinely  fragile 
in  her  white  muslin  blouse.  He  shuddered  when 
Bertie  Flood  touched  her.  Nothing  but  the  delight- 
ful innocence  of  the  girl  could  have  induced  her  to 
suffer  the  presence  of  this  satyr.  And  yet  it  seemed 
to  him  that  she  was  doing  all  that  she  could  to 
please  him.  .  .  . 

"Yes,  my  poor  husband :  the  vicar  I  always  call 
him — habit,  you  know — had  a  small  parish  in  the 
North  of  England.  I  have  a  son  in  the  church  too. 
Both  he  and  Rosie  really  take  after  the  father." 

"Yes.  .  .  .  Exactly,"  said  Edwin.  In  that  mo- 
ment Eosie  had  smiled  at  him,  and  the  smile  was 
enough.  God,  what  a  woman ! 

"The  vicar  came  from  a  very  old  family.  In  the 
North  it  is  recognised,  but  in  a  place  like  North 
Bromwich  it  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  meet  the  right 
sort  of  people.  I  have  to  be  very  careful  for  Eosie's 
sake.  The  child  is  so  trusting.  I  was  so  glad,  you 
know,  when  she  told  me  that  she  had  met  you  at 
Miss  Latham's.  One  feels  so  safe  with  a  doctor. 
You'll  be  able  to  look  after  her  a  bit  ...  see  that 
she  don't  get  too  tired.  Pantomime  is  very  tiring, 
you  know.  I  myself  suffer  agonies  from  indiges- 
tion. What  with  that  and  my  headaches,  I'm 
afraid  I'm  a  poor  companion  for  her.  As  I  say, 


WHITE  ROSES  497 

both  the  children  take  after  the  dear  vicar.    Kosie 
isn't  a  bit  like  me." 

"No,"  said  Edwin,  still  dazed  by  the  memory  of 
her  smile;  but,  as  he  spoke,  his  eyes  met  those  of 
Mrs.  Beaucaire,  and  he  saw  to  his  amazement  that 
they  were  really  the  eyes  of  Rosie,  that  her  dis- 
coloured nose  had  once  been  of  the  same  shape  as 
her  daughter's,  that  the  sagging,  sensual  mouth  was 
in  fact  a  degraded  version  of  Rosie's  too.  It  was  a 
revelation,  blasphemous  but  prophetic.  He  would 
not  consider  it.  He  dared  not  look  at  her. 

A  moment  later  Bertie  Flood  left  them.  Tea 
wasn't  much  in  his  line,  he  said,  and  his  complexion 
confirmed  the  assertion.  Mrs.  Beaucaire  saw  him 
to  the  door.  Edwin  and  Rosie  were  alone. 

It  was  a  wonderful  minute.  He  felt  that  she 
could  never  seem  more  beautiful,  more  delicate, 
more  exquisite  than  at  this  moment  standing  in 
her  pale  loveliness  against  the  grimy  lodging-house 
wallpaper,  with  her  hands  clasped  before  her. 

"I  had  to  come,"  he  said. 

"I  had  been  expecting  you.  I'm  awfully  glad  you 
found  time." 

Found  time!  ...  He  wanted  to  tell  her  of  his 
strange  adventure  of  the  night  before :  how  he  had 
stood  in  the  dripping  rain  beneath  her  window, 
hungry  for  the  sight  of  her,  unsatisfied.  She  stood 
as  though  she  would  be  glad  to  listen;  but  there 
Was  no  time.  Mrs.  Beaucaire,  after  a  noisy  and 
pointed  demonstration  in  the  hall,  re-entered.  It 
seemed  that  there  was  nothing  left  for  him  but  to 
take  his  departure. 

"Surely  you're  not  going  so  soon?"  she  said. 


498         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

And  he  stayed.  It  was  all  delightfully  intimate 
and  domestic.  These  people  seemed  to  possess  the 
rare  faculty  of  putting  a  visitor  as  shy  as  Edwin 
at  his  ease.  Mrs.  Beaucaire  did  most  of  the  talking, 
enlarging  on  Kosie's  devotion  to  the  parson  brother, 
regretting  that  circumstance,  and  possibly  the  un- 
reasonable prejudice  of  country  people  against 
theatrical  connections,  had  deprived  him  of  the 
family  living :  and  Rosie  listened  quietly,  more  com- 
pelling in  her  demure  silences  than  Mrs.  Beaucaire 
at  her  most  impressive. 

Once  or  twice  in  the  afternoon  that  lady  tactfully 
left  them,  returning,  each  time  with  a  renewed 
vigour  and  a  scent  that  suggested  the  combination 
of  eau-de-cologne  and  brandy.  These  solitary  mo- 
ments were  very  precious  to  Edwin.  Neither  of 
them  spoke  more  than  a  few  words,  but  the  air  be- 
tween them  seemed  charged  with  emotion.  It  was 
six  o'clock  when  he  left  Prince  Albert's  Place. 

"You  won't  forget  us,  will  you?"  said  Mrs.  Beau- 
caire with  enthusiasm.  "It  will  be  so  nice  for  Rosie 
to  have  some  one  to  take  her  to  rehearsal.  I  don't 
like  her  mixing  with  the  boys  in  the  company.  It 
isn't  the  thing.  And  we  don't  happen  to  have  any 
really  nice  friends  in  the  Midlands.  In  the  North 
it  would  have  been  quite  different." 

A  delirious  week  slipped  by.  In  spite  of  every 
resolution  Edwin  had  found  it  impossible  to  work. 
His  new  lodging  was  not  inspiring;  but  this  was 
only  one  of  the  excuses  that  he  invented  to  salve 
his  conscience.  He  knew  the  real  reason  for  this 
divine,  unreasonable  restlessness.  Even  if  it  were 
to  wreck  his  chances  in  the  final  examination  it 


WHITE  ROSES  499 

could  not  be  avoided,  and  there  was  no  reason 
why  it  should  be  excused.  He  knew  that  he  was  in 
love,  and  before  this  unquestionable  miracle  he 
abased  himself. 

Mrs.  Beaucaire,  now  satisfied  that  she  could  in- 
dulge a  "headache"  and  take  to  her  bed  as  often  as 
she  chose,  did  not  question  his  presence  at  Prince 
Albert's  Place :  she  was  even  ready  on  occasion  to 
treat  it  with  a  mild  facetiousness.  Rosie,  who 
lapped  up  adoration  as  naturally  as  a  kitten  takes 
to  milk,  treated  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  Edwin 
rather  wished  that  she  wouldn't  take  as  a  matter 
of  course  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  world. 
There  was  a  passivity  in  her  acquiescence  that 
filled  him  with  a  fear  that  she  was  used  to  this  sort 
of  thing  or  even  a  little  bored  by  it.  She  mopped 
up  his  devotions  with  an  ease  that  would  have  been 
disconcerting  if  he  had  not  always  been  bemused 
by  her  beauty.  Surely  it  was  enough  that  she 
should  be  beautiful ! 

In  the  morning — Mrs.  Beaucaire  always  had  a 
headache  of  another  kind  next  day — Edwin  would 
escort  Rosie  to  her  rehearsal  at  the  theatre.  He 
became  familiar  with  the  frowsty  box  in  which  the 
lame  stage-doorkeeper  sat  like  an  obscene  spider 
guarding  the  baize-covered  board  on  which  the  com- 
pany's letters  were  kept.  The  man  came  to  know 
him  and  would  pass  him  in  through  the  swinging 
doors  with  a  peculiarly  evil  leer.  Sometimes,  at 
the  stage  door  they  would  become  involved  in  a 
mass  of  patchouli-scented  chorus,  and  Edwin  would 
thrill  at  the  dignity  and  refinement  with  which 


$oo         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

Rosie,  in  her  white  fox  furs,  would  slip  through 
this  vulgar  tumult. 

So  to  the  stage  with  its  vast  cobwebbed  walls,  its 
huge  echoes  and  the  mysterious  darkness  of  the 
flies,  where  looped  ropes  and  grimy  festoons  of  for- 
gotten scenery  hung  still  as  seaweed  in  a  deep  sea. 
There,  in  the  sour  and  characteristic  odour  of  an 
empty  stage,  Edwin  would  wait  for  her  in  a  little 
alcove  of  the  whitewashed  wall  in  which  iron  cleats 
were  piled,  and  the  unmeaning  murmur  of  the  re- 
hearsal would  come  to  him  mingled  with  the  shrill 
voice  of  the  producer,  who  ended  every  sentence 
with  the  words  "my  dear,"  or  "old  boy,"  and  the 
noise  of  the  carpenter  hammering  wood  in  the  flies. 
His  original  acquaintance,  Miss  Latham,  discreet- 
ly avoided  him,  but  the  comedian,  Bertie  Flood, 
seemed  inclined  to  be  familiar.  One  morning  he 
dragged  Edwin  off  to  his  dressing  room  for  a  smoke. 
He  sat  with  his  legs  on  either  side  of  a  chair,  his 
fawn-coloured  bowler  on  the  back  of  his  head,  look- 
ing more  than  ever  like  a  bookie. 

"Well,  old  boy,"  he  said,  "how  goes  it?  How's 
the  little  Beaucaire?" 

"She's  all  right,  as  far  as  I  know,"  said  Edwin, 
who  was  inclined  to  resent  the  description. 

"Ma  had  any  headaches  lately?  I  know  what 
ma's  headaches  will  end  in.  Cirrhosis  of  the  liver. 
You're  a  doctor,  aren't  you?  Well,  I  know  all  about 
that.  Had  it  myself.  Just  realised  in  time  that  it 
didn't  pay.  Now  I  never  touch  anything  but  gin. 
Do  you  want  a  word  of  advice?" 

Edwin  thanked  him. 


WHITE  ROSES  501 

"May  seem  funny  from  a  chap  that  gets  two  hun- 
dred a  week  for  making  a  damn  fool  of  himself." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Edwin  politely. 

"Well,  if  you'll  take  my  advice,  you'll  go  easy  in 
that  direction.  Treat  it  as  a  business  proposition. 
Ma's  a  bad  old  woman  .  .  .  only  don't  tell  her  I 
said  so.  You  see  I'm  a  friend  of  the  family.  Dear 
little  girl,  Rosie,  too.  Verbus  Satienti — I  always 
let  'em  think  I  was  at  Oxford — Good  for  business." 

It  was  rather  disturbing;  for  though  it  was  no 
news  to  Edwin  that  Mrs.  Beaucaire's  headaches 
were  euphemistic,  the  fact  had  done  no  more  than 
contribute  to  the  ideal  qualities  with  which  he  had 
invested  her  daughter.  There  was  something  ro- 
mantic as  well  as  pitiful  in  the  idea  of  Rosje's  con- 
trasting innocence:  the  rose  that  has  its  roots  in 
foulness  is  not  less  a  rose.  It  had  even  seemed  to 
him  that  the  complete  collapse  of  Mrs.  Beaucaire 
might  throw  Rosie  into  his  arms:  a  situation  that 
would  be  full  of  romantic  and  tender  possibilities; 
and  the  girl's  inimitably  virginal  air  was  enough 
to  convince  him  that  Bertie  Flood's  other  sugges- 
tions were  no  more  than  the  natural  products  of 
a  mind  degraded  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  music- 
hall.  He  was  convinced  too  that  he  had  no  cause 
for  jealousy.  Ever  since  he  had  first  visited  her, 
Rosie  had  never  spent  more  than  a  few  hours  of 
daylight  out  of  his  sight. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  week  before  the  examina- 
tion his  confidence  suffered  something  of  a  shock. 
It  was  a  raw  winter  morning,  but  he  had  set  his 
heart  on  taking  her  into  his  own  hill-country,  and 
she,  with  her  usual  sweet  submission,  but  without 


502         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

a  hint  of  enthusiasm,  had  consented.  He  had 
planned  to  avoid  the  Halesby  side  of  the  range  and 
to  approach  it  from  the  southern  escarpment.  Early 
in  the  morning  he  paid  a  visit  to  Parkinson's,  the 
florist's,  in  the  Arcade,  where  he  bought  a  bunch 
of  pale,  exotic  roses :  white  roses,  that  should  match 
her  own  sweetness  and  fragility.  Once  she  had 
expressed  a  general  liking  for  flowers,  and  since 
then  it  had  been  his  delight  to  give  them  to  her. 
She  mopped  up  his  flowers  and  his  passion  with  the 
same  dreamy  passivity. 

From  the  corner  of  the  Place  he  saw  a  weedy, 
black-coated  figure  in  front  of  Number  Ten;  and 
as  he  approached,  the  figure  entered  and  the  door 
closed  behind  him.  Edwin  wondered  vaguely  if  it 
might  be  the  parson  brother.  The  landlady  opened 
the  door  in  a  flurry.  It  almost  seemed  as  if  she 
wanted  to  conceal  something. 

"I  don't  think  Miss  Beaucaire  can  see  you  for  a 
bit,"  she  said.  "Won't  you  call  later  in  the  morn- 
ing?" 

He  told  her  that  he  would  wait,  as  they  had  an 
appointment,  and  a  train  to  catch. 

"Then  will  you  kindly  wait  in  my  room.  You 
mustn't  take  any  notice  of  the  state  it's  in,"  she 
said,  still  on  the  defensive. 

The  state  of  the  landlady's  room  was  not  inspirit- 
ing. On  a  dirty  table  cloth  lay  the  remains  of  last 
night's  supper.  On  the  window  sill  stood  a  chevaux 
de  frise  of  empty  brandy  bottles  that  Edwin 
couldn't  help  associating  with  Mrs.  Beaucaire.  The 
arm-chairs,  covered  with  dirty  chintz  overalls  that 
suggested  a  layer  of  more  ancient  dirt  beneath, 


WHITE  ROSES  503 

were  not  inviting.  He  preferred  to  stand.  The 
house  was  as  quiet  and  secretive  as  usual;  but 
from  the  next  room  he  heard  an  irritating  rumour 
of  voices.  One  of  the  voices,  he  could  have  sworn, 
was  Rosie's.  A  little  later  he  heard  a  laugh,  and 
the  suspicion  became  a  disquieting  certainty,  for 
the  laugh  was  one  that  he  knew  well — with  a  dif- 
ference. It  was  as  if  Mrs.  Beaucaire  had  laughed 
with  Rosie's  voice.  He  found  it  difficult  to  restrain 
himself  from  bursting  into  the  room  and  settling 
the  matter  once  and  for  all.  Again  the  laugh — 
and  then  a  long  silence.  He  heard  steps  in  the 
passage,  a  whispered  conversation  with  the  land- 
lady, and  then  Rosie  came  in  to  him,  flushed,  and 
with  her  fair  hair  disordered.  He  could  not  speak. 
He  only  gave  her  the  roses. 

"Thank  you,  Eddie,"  she  said,  scarcely  noticing 
them.  Her  lips  were  parted  and  her  eyes  shone 
with  excitement.  She  had  never  seemed  to  him 
more  beautiful,  but  there  was  something  frighten- 
ing in  her  beauty. 

'Whatever  is  the  matter  with  you?"  she  said. 
"Why  do  you  look  so  serious?" 

"Who  was  your  visitor?" 

"Oh,  that's  it,  is  it?  You  silly  boy!  You  surely 
don't  mean  to  say  you're  jealous?" 

"Please  tell  me " 

"It  was  only  a  priest.  I  had  to  make  my  con- 
fession." 

"A  priest?  I  thought  your  people  belonged  to 
the  Church  of  England." 

"That  doesn't  prevent  me  from  being  a  Catholic. 
It's  much  better  for  professional  girls  to  be  Cath- 


504         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

olics.  They  look  after  you  when  you're  on  the 
road." 

He  could  not  say  any  more  about  it.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  her  eyes  were  anxious  as  though  she 
were  not  quite  sure  how  much  he  had  heard. 

"You  believe  me,  don't  you?"  She  spoke  in  a 
frightened  whisper. 

"Of  course  I  do.  We've  just  time  for  our  train. 
You  are  coming,  aren't  you?" 

She  said:  "Of  course  I  am,"  and  ran  upstairs 
singing  to  put  her  hat  on. 

The  roses  lay  neglected  on  the  sideboard  where 
she  had  placed  them.  In  five  minutes  she  returned, 
thoroughly  dressed  for  her  new  role  of  country  girl 
with  brogued  shoes  and  a  short  skirt  of  Harris 
tweed. 

"I'm  ready,"  she  said  gaily. 

It  was  a  wonderful  day.  They  walked  together 
under  dull  skies  that  made  the  berries  in  the  hedge- 
rows and  the  waning  fires  of  autumn  glow  more 
brightly,  and  even  ministered  to  the  girl's  own 
beauty.  The  cool  air  and  the  walking  made  her 
cheeks  glow  with  a  colour  that  was  natural  and 
therefore  unusual.  Edwin  was  so  entranced  with 
her  companionship  that  he  forgot  his  anxiousness 
of  the  morning;  so  lost  in  the  amazing  beauty  of 
her  hazel  eyes  and  her  cheek's  soft  contour  that  he 
did  not  notice  that  she  was  limping.  Halfway  to 
the  summit  of  the  hills  she  stopped,  gave  a  little 
sigh,  and  sat  down  on  the  bank  of  a  hedge. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry,  Eddie.  My  foot  hurts.  I 
think  this  shoe's  too  tight." 

"They  look  simply  splendid." 


WHITE  ROSES  505 

"I  know.  I  only  bought  them  yesterday — just 
specially  for  to-day." 

"But  it's  ridiculous  to  go  for  a  long  walk  in  new 
shoes !" 

"Do  you  mind  if  I  take  them  off  for  a  minute?" 

"Of  course  not.    Let  me  undo  the  laces." 

He  knelt  at  her  feet.  It  was  a  wonderful  and 
thrilling  experience  to  loosen  the  laces,  to  feel  her 
small  feet  in  their  smooth  silk  stockings.  His 
hands  trembled. 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  touch  my  feet.  I'm  awfully 
sorry :  it's  one  of  the  things  I  can't  bear.  You  don't 
mind,  do  you?" 

"You  mustn't  blame  me.    They're  so  beautiful." 

She  smiled.     Her  modesty  delighted  him. 

Sitting  there  together,  so  miraculously  alone, 
he  began  to  talk  about  his  future.  "I  shan't  see 
you  for  a  whole  week.  It  will  be  unbearable.  But 
when  the  exam,  is  over  and  I'm  qualified  it  will  be 
such  a  relief.  I  shall  feel  able  to  say  the  things  that 
I  want  to  say  to  you." 

For  a  long  time  she  was  silent.  Then  she  said: 
"What  are  you  expecting  to  do?" 

"I  think  I  shall  go  in  for  one  of  the  services. 
What  do  you  think  of  the  Indian  Medical?  It 
would  be  wonderful  to  see  India.  I've  always 
thought  that  I  should  like  to  know  something  of 
the  world.  I  think  it's  a  good  life.  Women  gen- 
erally love  it.  What  do  you  think  about  it?" 

"I  should  think  it  would  be  rather  nice.  But 
wouldn't  it  be  awfully  hot?  I've  known  one  or 
two  boys  in  the  Indian  Army.  There's  lots  of  danc- 
ing and  that  sort  of  thing,  isn't  there?" 


506         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

He  laughed.  Dancing  wasn't  his  strong  point, 
as  Professor  Beagle  could  have  told  her,  and  in 
any  case  India  didn't  mean  dancing  to  him.  She 
did  not  seem  at  all  anxious  to  pursue  the  subject. 

"I  think  we  could  walk  back  to  the  hotel  now," 
she  said.  "I'm  simply  starving."  They  walked 
down  the  hill  together,  almost  in  silence.  When 
they  reached  the  hotel,  she  disappeared  in  the  com- 
pany of  the  barmaid,  leaving  Edwin  to  wait  for  her 
in  the  coffee-room.  He  almost  resented  her  ab- 
sence. He  felt  that  he  couldn't  spare  her  for  a 
moment.  Waiting  at  the  table  he  picked  up  a  week- 
old  copy  of  the  North  Bromwich  Courier.  Gazing 
idly  at  the  front  page,  he  caught  sight  of  his  own 
name.  It  was  the  announcement  of  a  wedding. 

INGLBBY:  FELLOWS.  On  the  tenth  of  December, 
at  the  Parish  Church,  Halesby,  John  Ingleby  to 
Julia,  elder  daughter  of  the  late  Joseph  Fellows, 
of  Mawne,  Staffs. 

He  was  overwhelmed  with  a  sudden  indescribable 
emotion  that  was  neither  jealousy,  anger,  nor 
shame,  but  curiously  near  to  all  three.  He  sat  be- 
wildered, with  the  paper  in  front  of  him.  Eosie 
returned  to  find  him  blankly  staring. 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  you?  You  look 
as  if  you'd  seen  a  ghost." 

"Yes.  ...  I  think  I  have.  It's  nothing,  really. 
Nothing  at  all." 

He  drank  more  than  he  need  have  done  of  a 
villainous  wine  that  was  labelled  Chateau  Margaux, 
but  had  probably  been  pressed  on  the  hot  hill-sides 
of  Oran.  In  the  train,  on  the  way  home,  he  felt 


WHITE  ROSES  507 

flushed  and  sleepy,  but,  all  the  time,  divinely  con- 
scious of  the  warmth  and  softness  of  Kosie  sitting 
beside  him.  They  were  alone  in  the  first-class  car- 
riage. "I'm  sleepy  too,"  she  said.  He  drew  her 
gently  to  his  side,  and  she  rested,  content,  with  her 
head  on  his  shoulder.  In  the  wonder  of  this  he 
forgot  the  newspaper  and  its  staggering  contents. 
As  they  neared  North  Bromwich  she  stood  up  in 
front  of  the  mirror  to  arrange  her  hair,  and  Edwin, 
pulling  himself  together,  saw  that  his  blue  coat  was 
floured  with  a  fine  bloom  of  powder. 

She  still  found  it  difficult  to  walk,  and  so  they 
drove  in  a  hansom  to  Prince  Albert's  Place,  very 
grimy  and  sinister  in  the  dusk. 

"You  needn't  ring,"  she  said,  taking  out  a  latch- 
key and  showing  him  into  the  narrow  hall.  "Let's 
be  very  quiet,  so  as  not  to  disturb  mother." 

"I  don't  think  I'll  come  in,"  he  said.  He  knew 
that  he  must  make  an  end  somewhere. 

"Not  even  to  be  thanked?  I've  enjoyed  myself 
most  awfully." 

She  stood  before  him  in  the  gloom  of  the  hall  as 
though  she  were  waiting  for  something.  It  felt  as 
if  the  dark  space  between  them  must  break  into 
flame.  Their  lips  met. 

"Good  God!  .  .  .  how  wonderful  you  are!"  he 
said. 

"Next  week,"  she  whispered. 

m 

Edwin  had  arranged  to  spend  the  following  day 
with  the  Boyces  at  their  house  in  Alvaston.  He 
found  it  difficult  to  contain  himself,  for  the  delicious 


508         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

memory  of  their  parting  the  night  before  swamped 
his  efforts  at  conversation  with  the  persistency  of 
waves  that  follow  one  another  in  a  rising  tide.  It 
seemed  to  him  impossible  that  his  state  should  not 
be  evident  to  the  whole  household,  and  particularly 
to  Matthew,  who  knew  him  so  well. 

In  the  afternoon,  when  they  sat  smoking  together 
in  Boyce's  study  at  the  top  of  the  house,  he  felt 
that  he  was  on  the  brink  of  a  confession.  The  only 
thing  that  restrained  him  from  it  was  the  memory 
of  the  epigram  and  of  his  friend's  translation.  He 
felt  in  his  bones  that  Boyce  would  not  be  sym- 
pathetic and  though  his  infatuation  suggested  that 
he  wouldn't  much  care  whether  Boyce  were  sym- 
pathetic, or  suspicious,  an  intuitive  dread  of  sus- 
picion and  its  possible  effects  on  his  own  reason 
made  him  hold  his  tongue.  It  was  in  the  nature  of 
Boyce,  who  didn't  happen,  for  the  moment,  to  be 
in  love,  to  be  critical,  to  sweep  away  Kosie's  per- 
fections in  a  generalisation:  and  the  appeal  of  a 
generalisation  to  the  mind  of  youth  is  so  strong  that 
Edwin  was  afraid  to  hear  it.  Somewhere  in  his  sub- 
merged reason  he  admitted  that  Boyce's  judgment 
on  the  matter  would  probably  be  sound,  and  reason 
was  the  last  tribunal  in  the  world  before  which  he 
wished  this  exceptional  case  to  be  presented.  An 
unsatisfactory  day.  For  the  first  time  in  their 
lives,  the  relations  of  the  two  friends  were  in- 
definitely strained. 

He  left  Alvaston  early  in  the  evening.  On  his 
way  to  his  lodging  he  passed  the  gloomy  entrance 
to  Prince  Albert's  Place.  It  would  have  been  easy, 
so  easy,  to  call  at  Number  Ten,  but  he  had  deter- 


WHITE  ROSES  509 

mined,  once  and  for  all,  that  the  examination  week 
should  be  free  from  distractions,  and  pride  in  his 
own  strength  of  mind  held  him  to  his  course,  though 
he  realised,  almost  gladly,  that  even  if  he  were 
master  of  his  feet  he  could  not  control  his  thoughts. 
He  wondered  if  he  would  dream  of  her  .  .  . 

Next  day  the  rigours  of  the  final  examination 
overtook  him.  This  was  the  supreme  ordeal  in 
which  every  moment  of  his  professional  life  from 
the  day  when  he  first  entered  the  dissecting  room 
to  the  night  of  the  last  midwifery  case,  would  stand 
the  test  of  scrutiny.  He  was  not  exactly  afraid  of 
it.  He  knew  that  his  knowledge  and  technical  skill 
were  at  least  above  the  average  of  his  year,  and 
felt  that  with  ordinary  luck  he  would  be  among  the 
first  four  of  a  field  of  twelve.  The  year  was  not  one 
of  exceptional  brilliance,  and  comparisons  were 
therefore  in  his  favour. 

On  the  first  day,  in  the  viva-voce  examination  on 
surgery,  he  did,  for  one  moment,  lose  his  head,  but 
when  once  he  had  pulled  himself  together  and  ac- 
customed himself  to  the  conditions  of  the  test,  he 
settled  down  into  a  state  of  fatalistic  equanimity, 
taking  the  rough  with  the  smooth  and  deciding  that, 
on  the  whole,  he  was  not  likely  to  make  a  hopeless 
fool  of  himself. 

On  the  first  night  he  went  to  bed  early,  but  on 
the  second,  feeling  that  his  mind  would  be  clearer 
for  some  diversion,  he  went  to  a  music-hall  with 
W.G.  and  his  wife.  Drinking  beer  in  the  bar  with 
his  friend,  he  suddenly  heard  his  name  called,  and 
felt  a  tap  on  his  shoulder.  He  turned  to  find  him- 
self in  front  of  a  face  that  was  curiously  familiar, 


510         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

and  in  a  moment  found  that  he  was  shaking  hands 
with  Widdup,  a  small  and  rather  chastened  Wid- 
dup,  who  spoke  to  him  with  the  slow,  precise  voice 
that  he  had  known  at  St.  Luke's. 

"I  thought  it  was  you,  Ingleby,"  he  said.  "I 
wondered  if  I  should  run  across  you." 

Avoiding  a  hair-raising  display  on  the  slack  wire, 
they  stood  talking.  Widdup,  it  appeared,  had  been 
destined  for  an  engineering  career  in  North  Brom- 
wich,  when  his  mathematical  genius  had  won  him 
a  scholarship  at  Cambridge. 

"A  pity,  in  &  way,  for  I  should  have  seen  more 
of  you.  I  suppose  that  sort  of  thing  always  hap- 
pens to  school  friendships."  At  present  he  was 
visiting  a  firm  of  iron-founders  on  business.  They 
talked  together  of  old  times :  of  the  day  when  Ed- 
win, greatly  daring,  had  seen  the  Birches  run :  of 
the  languid  Selby,  now  head-master  of  a  small  pub- 
lic-school in  Norfolk,  and  of  old  fat  Leeming.  Be- 
tween the  conscious  effort  of  remembering  St. 
Luke's  and  the  unbidden  image  of  Kosie,  Edwin's 
head  was  in  a  whirl. 

"And  old  Griffin,"  said  Widdup.  "That's  another 
funny  thing.  I  ran  slap  into  him  in  the  lounge  of 
the  Grand  Midland  to-night.  Up  to  the  same  old 
games,  you  know.  Yes  ...  he  had  a  girl  with 
him.  Bather  an  attractive  little  piece:  something 
to  do  with  the  pantomime,  he  told  me.  What  was 
her  name?  The  old  brute  introduced  me,  too !  Yes 
...  I  think  I've  got  it.  Beaucaire.  .  .  .  Rosie 
Beaucaire.  Rather  a  rosy  prospect  for  old  Griff, 
I  should  imagine.  Why,  what  the  devil's  the  mat- 
ter with  you?" 


WHITE  ROSES  511 

"I'm  all  right,  thanks,"  said  Edwin.  "It's  this 
exam.,  you  know.  Let's  have  another  drink."  He 
called  for  whisky  and  soda. 

"Chin-chin,"  said  Widdup. 

Edwin  polished  off  a  couple  of  drinks  and  then 
told  Widdup  that  he  must  rejoin  his  friend,  leaving 
him  staggered  at  his  abrupt  departure.  He  didn't 
rejoin  W.G.  He  walked  straight  out  of  the  theatre 
and  off  up  the  Halesby  Koad.  He  had  determined 
to  go  straight  to  Rosie's  lodgings  and  thrash  the 
matter  out;  but  by  the  time  he  reached  Prince 
Albert's  Place  he  had  thought  better  of  it. 

It  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world,  he 
reflected,  that  Griffin  should  know  the  Beaucaires, 
for  Griffin  was  constantly  in  touch  with  theatrical 
people.  It  was  even  natural  that  Griffin,  knowing 
her,  should  take  Rosie  to  the  Grand  Midland.  It 
was  the  obvious  thing  to  do  if  you  had  money  to 
spend,  as  Griffin  had.  It  would  be  just  like  the 
irony  of  fate,  he  reflected,  if  Griffin  should  afflict 
him  with  unhappiness  in  this  case  as  he  had  done  in 
so  many  others.  He  remembered  the  bitter  suffer- 
ings of  those  early  days  at  St.  Luke's  that  Widdup 
had  so  clearly  recalled.  He  remembered  Dorothy 
Powys  and  the  dance  at  Mawne :  his  suspicions,  his 
agonised  resentment.  Even  more  darkly  there  came 
to  him  the  memory  of  a  voice  in  Dr.  Harris's  sur- 
gery, a  conviction,  never  yet  established,  that  Griffin 
had  no  right  to  know  any  woman.  This  reflection, 
he  knew,  implied  a  doubt  of  Rosie's  innocence:  an 
imputation  that  he  could  not  possibly  admit.  And 
yet  .  .  .  and  yet  .  .  .  He  remembered  the  warning 
that  Bertie  Flood  had  given  him  in  his  dressing 


512         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

room.  He  remembered  the  visitor  in  the  black  coat 
four  days  before.  His  mind  was  in  hell. 

In  this  purgatory  of  doubt  and  horror,  he  lived 
for  the  rest  of  the  week.  In  the  daytime  the  prog- 
ress of  the  examination  engrossed  him,  but  at 
night  he  always  found  himself  hanging  about  the 
darkness  of  Prince  Albert's  Place,  hoping  against 
hope,  that  his  suspicions  were  unfounded,  not  dar- 
ing to  put  them  to  the  test,  lest  they  should  be  con- 
firmed. 

On  Friday  night,  when  the  last  of  his  medical 
ordeals  was  over,  he  went  straight  to  Number  Ten. 
It  was  a  wonderful  moment.  Now,  with  a  clear 
conscience  hie  might  see  her  again ;  now,  once  more, 
he  could  know  the  ecstasy  of  her  kisses  and  forget 
the  ungenerous  nightmare  in  which  he  had  lived 
through  the  later  stages  of  the  exam.  He  ap- 
proached the  dirty  doorway  with  his  heart  beating 
wildly.  At  first  his  ring  was  unanswered,  but  a 
little  later  the  landlady  came  to  the  door  with  a 
red,  suspicious  face,  opening  it  jealously,  as  though 
she  feared  to  let  him  in. 

He  inquired  for  Miss  Beaucaire.  Miss  Beaucaire 
was  out.  Did  the  woman  know  when  she  was  ex- 
pected to  return?  She  hadn't  the  least  idea.  Was 
Mrs.  Beaucaire  in,  then?  Mrs.  Beaucaire  was  in, 
but  invisible.  Mrs.  Beaucaire  had  one  of  her  head- 
aches. Edwin  suggested  that  he  should  wait  in 
their  room.  Impossible.  Mrs.  Beaucaire  was  lying 
down  there.  He  hung  upon  the  doorstep  as  if  he 
were  waiting  at  the  gates  of  paradise.  At  last  the 
landlady  took  it  upon  herself  to  close  the  door. 


WHITE  ROSES  513 

She  must  have  thought  he  was  mad.  Perhaps  he 
was  mad.  .  .  . 

For  an  hour  or  more  he  waited  in  the  rain.  It 
occurred  to  him  that  at  least  the  woman  was  speak- 
ing the  truth,  for  there  was  no  light  in  either  of  the 
front  rooms.  The  Grand  Midland.  ...  It  was 
there  that  Widdup  had  seen  them.  He  walked  to 
Sackville  Row  at  a  great  pace  and  straight  into  the 
hotel,  where  waiters  and  elderly  commercial  gentle- 
men stared  at  his  wet  clothes  and  his  haggard  face. 
He  went  into  each  of  the  dining-rooms  and  down 
the  stairs  to  the  Turkish  lounge.  Nowhere  was 
Eosie  or  Griffin  to  be  seen.  A  search  of  this  kind 
was  ridiculous,  but  every  moment  that  the  agony 
was  extended  made  him  more  desperately  anxious. 

He  walked  back  in  the  drizzle  to  Prince  Albert's 
Place  and  paced  the  pavement  under  the  black 
walls  of  the  warehouses.  The  road  was  deserted. 
There  was  no  sound  in  it  at  all  but  the  dripping  of 
water  from  some  neglected  spout.  He  walked  up 
and  down  in  the  shadow,  and  as  he  walked  he 
became  conscious  of  something  like  a  personality 
in  the  faces  of  the  long  row  of  lodging-houses, 
something  sinister,  as  though  their  shuttered 
windows  concealed  a  wealth  of  obscene  experience 
like  the  eyes  of  ancient  street-walkers.  The  souls 
of  those  squat  Victorian  houses  were  languidly  in- 
terested in  him.  Another  victim.  .  .  .  That  was 
what  he  must  seem  to  them.  And  still  the  windows 
of  Number  Ten  were  unlighted. 

He  heard  the  clock  in  the  Art  Gallery  chime 
eleven:  a  leisurely,  placid  chime  muffled  by  gusty 
rain.  Perhaps  the  woman  had  lied  to  him.  Per- 


514        THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

haps,  at  that  very  moment  Rosie  was  sleeping  peace- 
fully in  the  unlighted  upper  story.  He  was  over- 
wrought with  the  strain  of  the  examination  on  the 
top  of  this  devastating  passion.  He  had  better  go 
home. 

He  turned  to  go,  and  at  that  very  moment  he 
saw  two  figures  approaching  from  the  Halesby 
Eoad.  The  street  lamp,  at  the  corner,  threw  their 
shadows  on  the  shining  pavement.  One  of  them 
was  Eosie — he  would  have  known  her  anywhere — 
and  the  other,  beyond  doubt,  was  Griffin.  He  was 
seized  with  the  same  blind  passion  that  had  swept 
over  him  in  the  big  schoolroom  at  St.  Luke's  ten 
years  before,  an  impulse  to  murder  that  he  could 
only  control  by  digging  his  finger  nails  into  his 
hands. 

He  stood  there  trembling  in  the  shadow  of  the 
blank  wall,  huddling  close  to  it  for  support  and 
for  protection.  They  passed  him,  and  he  heard 
Kosie's  quiet  laugh.  Her  laugh  was  one  of  the 
things  about  her  that  he  had  loved  most.  They 
stopped  at  the  door,  and  Eosie  took  out  her  latch- 
key. It  was  almost  a  repetition  of  the  scene  in 
which  he  had  shared  a  week  before.  Now,  perhaps, 
she  would  kiss  him.  He  felt  that  if  he  saw  her  kiss- 
ing Griffin  he  could  have  killed  them  both.  Murder- 
er's Cross  Eoad.  ...  A  hundred  thoughts  came 
swirling  through  his  brain.  They  entered,  and 
closed  the  door  behind  them.  Griffin:  the  old 
Griffin:  the  human  beast  of  St.  Luke's.  The  new 
Griffin :  the  gross  North  Bromwich  womaniser :  the 
Griffin  of  Dr.  Harris's  surgery.  .  .  .  Edwin  saw 
himself  upon  the  edge  of  a  ghastly,  unthinkabl« 


WHITE  ROSES  515 

tragedy.  He  must  prevent  it.  At  all  costs.  At  the 
cost  of  life  if  needs  be. 

He  crept  quickly  across  the  road.  The  houses 
watched  him.  The  window  of  the  lower  room 
bloomed  suddenly  with  a  yellow  light.  He  stood 
with  his  hands  clutching  the  window-sill,  listening. 
Once  again  he  heard  Rosie's  laugh,  and  a  rumour 
of  deeper  speech  that  he  knew  to  be  the  voice  of 
Griffin.  The  shadow  of  Griffin's  shoulders  swept 
the  window,  swelling  gigantically  as  it  passed.  The 
light  was  turned  down,  but  not  extinguished. 
Rosie's  laugh  again.  He  could  have  killed  her  for 
that  laugh,  for  it  mocked  him.  The  faint  shadow 
of  the  man's  shoulders  retreated.  He  guessed  that 
they  were  standing  at  the  door.  The  door  of  the 
room  closed  softly.  Now  there  was  no  sound  except 
the  heavy  breathing  that  one  hears  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  a  pigsty  at  night.  Was  Griffin  still 
there? 

Another  beam  of  light  fell  on  the  shining  street. 
Some  one  had  lighted  the  gas  in  the  room  upstairs. 
Was  Griffin  still  below?  Panic  seized  him.  He 
must  know.  At  all  costs  he  must  know.  Dr.  Harris's 
surgery.  ...  If  he  had  to  break  in  the  front  door 
he  must  know.  As  he  reached  it  he  tripped  over  an 
iron  boot-scraper.  The  step  barked  his  shin.  Of 
course  the  door  was  locked,  but — wonder  of  won- 
ders— Rosie  had  left  the  latchkey  outside.  He 
opened  the  door  softly  and  went  on  tip-toe  into  the 
hall.  In  the  room  on  the  right  he  still  heard  the 
grunting  noise.  Thank  God,  Griffin  was  still  there ! 
At  least  he  could  tell  him  that  he  knew! 

He  opened  the  door.     In  the  half-light  he  could 


516        JHE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

see  that  the  room  was  empty  except  for  Mrs.  Beau- 
caire,  who  lay  stretched  on  the  sofa,  snoring  heavily 
with  her  vile  mouth  open.  On  the  table  stood  an 
empty  brandy  bottle.  The  place  stank  of  brandy. 

Now  he  knew  the  worst.  He  stumbled  upstairs 
in  the  dark  and  knocked  frantically  at  the  door 
of  the  front  bedroom.  Kosie  answered:  "Who  is 
it?" 

"It's  I.    For  God's  sake,  let  me  in." 

"Who  the  devil  is  it?"  said  the  voice  of  Dr. 
Harris's  consulting-room. 

Kosie  answered  him  in  excited  whispers. 

"You  can't  come  in,  Eddie,"  she  said.  "How  on 
earth  did  you  get  into  the  house?  Please  go  away. 
I  can't  see  you.  I  can't,  really." 

"I'm  coming  in,  I  tell  you.  If  you  don't  open 
the  door,  I'll  smash  it.  I  mean  what  I  say." 

"Ingleby ?"  the  voice  muttered.  "What  the 

devil  has  Ingleby  to  do  with  you?  All  right.  I'll 
go.  I'll  chuck  the  fellow  downstairs." 

"Oh,  don't  .  .  .  please  don't.  .  .  .  Let  him  go 
quietly." 

Griffin  unlocked  the  door.  He  stood  facing  Ed- 
win in  his  shirt-sleeves.  Bosie,  still  dressed, 
clutched  at  the  mantelpiece.  The  vein  in  the  middle 
of  Griffin's  forehead  bulged  with  anger.  His  short 
neck  was  flushed. 

"What  the  hell "  he  began — and  then  they 

closed.  Edwin's  heel  ripped  up  the  corner  of  the 
carpet  as  they  swayed  together.  Suddenly  Griffin's 
grip  slackened.  His  face  blanched,  and  in  a  mo- 
ment Edwin  was  letting  down  a  sheer  weight  upon 
the  bed. 


WHITE  ROSES  517 

"What's  the  matter?"  Rosie  screamed,  and  flung 
herself  beside  him.  "What's  the  matter?" 

"Good  God !  .  .  .  He's  gone." 

"No  .  .  .  No "  she  cried. 

Edwin  tore  open  Griffin's  shirt,  listening  for  an 
impulse  that  was  not  there. 

"He's  gone,"  he  said,  panting.  "He's  dead.  .  .  . 
Heart.  ...  He  always  had  a  rocky  heart.  He's 
dead." 

The  awful  word  seemed  to  pull  Rosie  together. 
They  stared  at  each  other  blankly  with  wide  eyes. 

"Are  you  sure?"  she  whispered. 

"Yes.  ...  Of  course " 

She  rose  to  her  feet,  speaking  in  a  voice  that  was 
quite  new  to  him. 

"Eddie  .  .  .  for  God's  sake,  go  ...  now!  .  .  . 
quickly !" 

"I  can't  go." 

"Go  quickly,  I  tell  you.  Don't  be  a  damned  little 
fool.  You  don't  want  to  be  mixed  up  in  this. 
Eddie,  for  God's  sake.  .  .  .  It's  'natural  causes,' 
Eddie." 

He  blundered  down  the  dark  stairs  and  out  into 
the  street.  He  could  not  walk.  He  cowered  under 
the  warehouse  wall  opposite,  gazing,  as  though 
fascinated,  at  the  yellow  square  of  window.  The 
discreet  Victorian  houses  surveyed  him  as  if  the 
horror  that  the  yellow  blind  concealed  were  an 
ordinary  occurrence  in  their  dingy  lives.  They 
were  used  to  death.  And  death  did  not  change 
them.  A  rubber-tyred  hansom  rolled  smoothly  up 
the  Halesby  Road,  past  the  mouth  of  the  Place.  At 
the  corner,  under  the  gas-lamp,  Edwin  saw  the 


Si8         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

figure  of  a  policeman  with  rain  shining  on  his  cape. 
The  sight  recalled  him  to  a  sense  of  awful  possi- 
bilities. For  the  moment  he  dared  not  move.  He 
flattened  himself  against  the  warehouse  walls  and 
did  not  realise  that  he  was  standing  directly  under 
the  dripping  waterspout.  In  the  western  sky  rose 
the  baleful  glare  of  an  uncowled  furnace.  The 
policeman  strolled  away,  and  Edwin,  cautiously 
emerging,  set  off  through  the  rain  up  the  Halesby 
Koad  towards  the  hills.  He  felt  that  he  needed 
their  solitude  and  darkness. 

IV 

Next  day,  a  haggard  and  desolate  figure,  he  ap- 
peared in  the  cloak-room  of  the  University  where 
the  examination  results  were  displayed.  In  a  dream 
he  realised  that  he  was  now  a  Bachelor  of  Medicine, 
but  in  the  realisation  there  was  none  of  the  joy  that 
he  had  anticipated.  He  stood  before  the  board  be- 
wildered, until  W.G.  came  up  behind  him  and 
wrung  his  hand. 

"You  look  as  if  you'd  been  making  a  night  of  it, 
my  boy,"  he  said.  "Come  and  have  some  coffee  at 
the  Dousita." 

W.G.  was  on  the  top  of  himself.  "It  was  a  pretty 
near  thing.  The  external  examiner  in  Medicine 
gave  me  hell ;  but  it's  all  right.  God !  .  .  .  it's  diffi- 
cult to  believe,  isn't  it?  What  are  you  going  to 
do?" 

"I  don't  know.    A  voyage,  I  should  think." 

He  hadn't  thought  of  it  before. 

"That's  not  a  bad  idea.  Bit  of  a  rest  cure,  eh? 
That's  the  only  disadvantage,  I  don't  mind  telling 


WHITE  ROSES  519 

you,  of  being  married.    I  couldn't  leave  the  missus." 

W.G.  babbled  on  happily.  "Did  you  see  the  eve- 
ning paper?"  he  said.  "I  see  that  fellow  Griffin's 
done  for.  I  always  said  he'd  come  to  a  nasty,  sticky 
end.  Some  woman  or  other.  ...  I  remember  your 
saying  that  he  couldn't  play  footer  because  of  his 
heart.  Ah,  well  .  .  .  that's  ong  fewine  the  less,  poor 
devil!" 

When  W.G.  left  him,  Edwin  called  for  a  time- 
table and  looked  out  the  trains  to  Liverpool.  There 
was  one  that  started  in  half  an  hour.  He  caught 
it,  and  next  morning  presented  himself  at  a  ship- 
ping office  in  Water  Street. 

The  medical  superintendent  received  him. 

<rYou  want  a  ship?  Well,  you  know,  you  look 
very  young.  When  were  you  qualified?" 

"Yesterday,"  Edwin  confessed. 

"Very  young.  Still,  you  won't  be  stale.  You 
don't  drink,  by  any  chance?" 

"I'm  practically  a  total  abstainer."  The  man 
scrutinised  Edwin's  haggard  eyes. 

"H'm.  .  .  .  Well,  as  it  happens,  one  of  our  men 
has  failed  us.  I'll  give  you  a  ship,  the  Macao,  if 
you  can  sail  to-morrow.  Bather  short  notice,  eh?" 

"I  think  I  can  do  it.    What  about  equipment?" 

"Oh,  we  don't  go  in  for  brass-bound  uniforms  on 
our  ships.  Ten  pounds  a  month  and  bonus.  What?" 

"Where  is  she  going  to?" 

"China.  You  may  call  at  Japan  for  coal  with 
luck.  See  the  world,  you  know.  That's  what  most 
of  you  fellows  are  after.  You'll  have  to  go  aboard 
to-night,  Birkenhead  Docks." 

"I'll  be  there." 


520         THE  YOUNG  PHYSICIAN 

And  with  trembling  hands  he  signed  his  contract. 

In  a  wintry  evening  he  crossed  the  Mersey  ferry. 
A  salt  wind  from  the  west  boomed  up  the  channel. 
Edwin,  in  the  bows,  felt  his  face  drenched  with 
spray.  "It's  clean,"  he  thought.  "It  will  make  me 
cleaner.  That's  what  I  need.  I  don't  believe  I  shall 
ever  feel  anything  again,  until  I'm  washed  clean. 
I'm  old  .  .  .  old  and- numb.  I've  lost  my  sense  of 
enjoyment.  I  wonder  if  it  will  ever  come  back  \o 
me!" 

As  he  stood  there  in  the  salt  breeze,  some  words 
of  Traherne,  his  mother's  countryman,  came  into 
his  mind: 

<<You  shall  never  enjoy  this  world  aright  till  the 
sea  itself  floweth  in  your  veins,  till  you  are  clothed 
with  the  heavens  and  crowned  with  the  stars." 

Perhaps  they  were  true.    He  wondered. 


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